Letter to the Editor
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Diabetes. Aug 15, 2022; 13(8): 665-667
Published online Aug 15, 2022. doi: 10.4239/wjd.v13.i8.665
Loss of skeletal muscle mass is not specific to type 2 diabetes
Bo Zhou, Ying-Qi Jin, Lian-Ping He
Bo Zhou, Ying-Qi Jin, Lian-Ping He, School of Medicine, Taizhou University, Taizhou 318000, Zhejiang Province, China
Author contributions: Zhou B and He LP came up with ideas and constructs; Zhou B and Jin YQ wrote the manuscript; He LP approved the main conceptual ideas and made corrections; all authors provided final edits and approved the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Every author stated that there is no commercial, professional, or personal conflict of interest relevant to the study and hereby proves that it complies with the principles of publishing ethics.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Lian-Ping He, PhD, Academic Fellow, Director, Teacher, School of Medicine, Taizhou University, No. 1139 Shifu Avenue, Jiaojiang District, Taizhou 318000, Zhejiang Province, China. lianpinghe@tzc.edu.cn
Received: March 22, 2022
Peer-review started: March 22, 2022
First decision: May 30, 2022
Revised: May 30, 2022
Accepted: July 6, 2022
Article in press: July 6, 2022
Published online: August 15, 2022
Abstract

Skeletal muscle is a massive insulin-sensitive tissue in the body. Loss of muscle mass is associated with mitochondrial dysfunction, and is often a result of diabetes. Insulin deficiency or insulin resistance can only be seen as reduced skeletal muscle mass. Diabetes is caused by insulin deficiency or insulin resistance; however, insulin resistance is not unique to diabetics. Insulin resistance also exists in many diseases.

Keywords: Diabetics, Insulin deficiency, Insulin resistance, Skeletal muscle mass

Core Tip: Insulin resistance is present in hypertension, and in this case, loss of skeletal muscle mass occurs. At the same time, insulin resistance also results in obesity, and in this case, there is also a reduction in skeletal muscle mass. Loss of skeletal muscle mass can occur in many diseases.