Research

Mixed

At rest, the majority of free fatty acids (FFA) taken up by skeletal muscle are not oxidized directly but instead enter an intramuscular lipid pool (likely triglycerides) which serves as the immediate source for oxidation.

When you are resting, your muscles do not burn the fat circulating in your blood directly. Instead, they take that fat and store it internally in small lipid pools, which are then slowly broken down to provide energy. This means your body manages fuel storage and usage separately at rest.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Results show that most, if not all, free fatty acids taken up by resting muscle are not oxidized directly, but probably enter an intramuscular pool which has a slow turnover during resting metabolism and is the immediate source of oxidized lipid substrate.
Gilles R. Dagenais et al. · Journal of Clinical Investigation · 1976

Why this rating

Controlled human study with tracer infusion and steady-state measurements, though limited to forearm muscle and small sample size.

Source

Free fatty acid oxidation by forearm muscle at rest, and evidence for an intramuscular lipid pool in the human forearm.

Gilles R. Dagenais et al. · Journal of Clinical Investigation · 1976

DOI 10.1172/jci108486

mechanism_only · n=9Cited 239×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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