Integrating muscle cell biochemistry and whole-body physiology in humans: 31P-MRS data from the InSight trial

Abstract

We acquired 31 P-MRS data from skeletal muscle of subjects of mixed gender and ethnicity, combined with a panel of physiological characteristics, and tested several long-standing hypotheses regarding relationships between muscle cell biochemistry and whole-body physiology with unusually high statistical power. We hypothesized that i) whole-body VO2 max would correlate with muscle respiratory capacity, ii) resting muscle phosphocreatine concentration ([PCr]) would negatively correlate with delta efficiency and iii) muscle mitochondrial function would positively correlate with both resting VO2 and total daily energy expenditure (TDEE). Muscle respiratory capacity explained a quarter of the variation in VO2 max (r 2 = 26, p