Shortness of breath and a reduced exercise capacity are common concerns for patients with respiratiry disease. Most of the time these symptoms are a result of airway or lung tissue dysfunction. Recently, the role of respiratory muscles has gotten more attention. We know that certain neurologic and musco-skeletal diseases impact a patients's ability to breath. A consequence of aging called sarcopenia, where we loose not only muscle strength but muscle mass, has been extensively studied.
There is increasing evidence that suggests that muscle quality, particularly fat infiltration within muscle called myosteatosis may be equallt important when it comes to muscle function. The term 'fatty muscle' has been introduced to describe the metabolic dysfunction associated with the fatty infiltration of muscle.
Interestingly, the term fatty muscle refers to multiple fat depo its within the skeletal muscle system and these deposits can be identified through cat scanning. Several locations of fatty deposits in muscle have been identified as to whether they occur around muscle groups that are present within individual muscles or are present in muscle cells. Although cat scanning currently is considered the gold standard for evaluation, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) offers several different advantages including the ability to see muscle tissue architecture without radiation exposure.
The need to control body fat has been getting a great deaal of attention and this finding of fatty muscle and how it may impact your breathing is an important observation.
