Skeletal Muscle Performance in Metabolic Disease: Microvascular or Mitochondrial Limitation or Both?

One of the clearly established health outcomes associated with chronic metabolic diseases (eg, type II diabetes mellitus) is that the ability of skeletal muscle to maintain contractile performance during periods of elevated metabolic demand is compromised as compared to the fatigue-resistance of muscle under normal, healthy conditions. While there has been extensive effort dedicated to determining the major factors that contribute to the compromised performance of skeletal muscle with chronic metabolic disease, the extent to which this poor outcome reflects a dysfunctional state of the microcirculation, where the delivery and distribution of metabolic substrates can be impaired, versus derangements to normal metabolic processes and mitochondrial function, versus a combination of the two, represents an area of considerable unknown. The purpose of this manuscript is to present some of the current concepts for dysfunction to both the microcirculation of skeletal muscle as well as to mitochondrial metabolism under these conditions, such that these diverse issues can be merged into an integrated framework for future investigation. Based on an interpretation of the current literature, it may be hypothesized that the primary site of dysfunction with earlier stages of metabolic disease may lie at the level of the vasculature, rather than at the level of the mitochondria.