Most people experience some muscle pain when they exercise more than usual or suffer a sports injury. However some people consistently develop muscle pain with light exercise. These people may have a metabolic disorder.

There are three main types of metabolic disorder:

  • Disorders affecting the breakdown of glycogen or glucose into pyruvate, often termed glycogen storage disorders
  • Defects of fatty acid oxidation, some of which are known as lipid storage myopathies
  • Defects of the mitochondrial respiratory chain, which may be known as mitochondrial myopathies

The effects of these disorders vary considerably from person to person.

Metabolic disorders are cause by a fault in the mechanism that breaks up the fuel in our food to convert it to energy. When we are sitting down our energy use is low but when we exercise our muscles demand a great quantity of energy very quickly. People with a metabolic disorder experience pain because the extra demand on this faulty mechanism means it cannot cope.

Return to the Metabolic disorders home page.