The shape of your buttocks can reveal hidden health risks

There are signals that the body sends quietly, before an illness becomes loud. The shape of the buttocks is one of them: when type 2 diabetes knocks on the door, or has already entered, that muscle changes appearance. It doesn’t simply inflate or deflate, but changes in specific places, and differently between men and women. This is stated by a study on 61,290 resonances from the UK Biobank, with three-dimensional mapping.

men and women

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Presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America in Chicagothe research uses a technique that processes sets of MRI images to create Detailed anatomical models of the gluteus maximus, the largest muscle in the human body. “Changes in shape may act as an early structural marker of metabolic decline,” explains Marjola Thanaj, from the University of Westminster. “Features such as focal thinning or outward bulging, often related to fat deposition, appear to reflect early structural changes in the muscle.”

In men with type 2 diabetes, researchers observed inward deformations, areas where the muscle surface retracts, probably due to localized atrophy. In women, on the contrary, the outward expansion in specific regions, a consequence of the greater tendency to deposit intramuscular fat. “These signatures opposite indicators indicate that the same disease manifests itself differently in male and female muscle” explains Thanaj. A detail that traditional measurements do not capture. The data crossed 86 different variables, mapping how they are associated with changes in muscle shape over time. Physical fragility also proved to be different between the sexes: in men it translates into a general shrinkage of the muscle, in women the effect is limited to smaller areas.

muscle remodeling

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Louise Thomas, teacher of metabolic imaging at the University of Westminster (UK), highlights that the glute plays a key role in metabolic health. The study, adds Thanaj, opens up the possibility of monitoring muscle remodeling over time, “allowing doctors to understand whether an intervention can improve the structure of the muscle, and not just its size or total fat content.” People with diabetes often face musculoskeletal problems that limit physical activityworsening health conditions. “Our study sheds light on specific muscle changes in diabetes that have never been demonstrated before, helping us to understand musculoskeletal problems and potentially guide physiotherapy interventions,” concludes the researcher.