The goal of this proposal is to use a recently developed triple-tracer positron emission tomography (PET) method to study skeletal muscle insulin resistance (IR) in research volunteers with type 2 diabetes mellitus (type 2 DM) and in comparison to age and gender-matched, normal weight non-diabetic volunteers, and in comparison to age, gender, and weight-matched overweight or obese non-diabetic volunteers. We will use the three tracers to obtain data on the respective insulin actions upon tissue perfusion, glucose transport and glucose phosphorylation in order to test the hypothesis that insulin resistance (IR) in type 2 DM is caused by an aggregation of impairments at these steps, thus challenging the prevalent concept that IR derives from a solitary impairment in trans-membrane transport.