Increased calf and plantar muscle fibrotic contents in obese subjects may cause ankle instability

Abstract

Obesity is strongly associated with musculoskeletal disorders of the lower limb, including ankle instability and resulting gait problems. In the present study, we aimed to examine, using paired comparisons of subjects, whether moderate duration of obesity in patients with mild to moderate elevations of body mass index (BMI), changes the fibrous contents of muscles that support the ankle mortices, namely calf and plantar muscles. We attempted to examine these parameters because this shall provide direct evidence of whether obesity directly impacts myoarchitecture and support of the adjoining joints. MRI image segmentation and pixel correlations by grey level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) and entropy were used to analyse the changes. The differences in the means between groups (both GLCM and entropy) were significant from control lean populations (P<0.0001, ANOVA) for the parameters examined for both the calf and the plantar muscles. Reduction in weight should thus be a first-line approach in preventing these changes that may significantly affect quality of life due to gait disturbances.