Fig. 4

The whole-muscle metabolic profiles of 3630 muscle fibres from 17 male rats across four groups. The four groups are Control Sedentary (CS); diabetic with conventional insulin therapy (DCT); diabetic with intensive insulin therapy (DIT); and diabetic with combined exercise training and conventional insulin therapy (DARE). a The percentage of total fibres across all fibre types identified as containing high neutral IMCL stores via Oil Red O staining. b The percentage of total muscle fibres across all fibre types identified as containing high glycogen stores via glycogen periodic acid Schiff staining. All data are expressed as mean ± SEM. ** denotes P = 0.0094; *** denotes P = 0.0002. Note that the DARE group had significantly more high-IMCL containing fibres than each of the other groups, which is indicative of a well-documented result of exercise training known as the athlete’s paradox. Taken in conjunction with Fig. 3, it appears that this phenomenon occurs as a result of changing IMCL storage specifically within type I oxidative fibres