AUDIO – POISON AT RALPHS –
April 14, 2026 – “What is not so well-known is that diet also has a significant impact on musculoskeletal health,” said Dr. Thomas Link.
Muscles store fat in two ways: in “streaks” of fat that sit between healthy muscles, called intermuscular fat, and in droplets stored in muscle fibers, called intramuscular fat.
Everyone, regardless of weight or physical ability, has some of both types, but you typically won’t find thick streaks of intermuscular fat in extreme athletes, said Christopher Fry, co-director of the Center for Muscle Biology at the University of Kentucky.
The difference is due to how the body uses fat in the muscles, said Fry, who wasn’t involved with the new research. In athletes, fat stored in muscle — predominantly in muscle fiber droplets — is an important energy reserve that the body taps into when a person exerts an extraordinary amount of energy. When those energy reserves aren’t being used or a person has a metabolic disease such as Type 2 diabetes, fat begins to build up, particularly in streaks between the muscles.
“Everyone had a little bit of fat between their muscles, but any expansion is going to not be good,” Fry said.
