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Muscle atrophy is the loss of skeletal muscle mass. It can be caused by immobility, aging, malnutrition, medications, or a wide range of injuries or diseases that impact the musculoskeletal or nervous system. Muscle atrophy leads to muscle weakness and causes disability.
The oxidative damage causes degeneration of muscles, in particular those within the skeletal and cardiac systems. [4] If the cardiac muscles are impaired the animal may exhibit signs of respiratory distress. [1] While deterioration of skeletal muscles results in stiffness, weakness, and recumbency. [5]
There are many proposed causes of sarcopenia and it is likely the result of multiple interacting factors. Understanding of the causes of sarcopenia is incomplete, however, changes in hormones, immobility, age-related muscle changes, nutrition, and neurodegenerative changes have all been recognized as potential causative factors.
The muscle protein, dystrophin, is in most muscle cells and works to strengthen the muscle fibers and protect them from injury as muscles contract and relax. [3] It links the muscle membrane to the thin muscular filaments within the cell. Dystrophin is an integral part of the muscular structure.
Muscle weakness is a lack of muscle strength. Its causes are many and can be divided into conditions that have either true or perceived muscle weakness. True muscle weakness is a primary symptom of a variety of skeletal muscle diseases, including muscular dystrophy and inflammatory myopathy.
Further causes of neuromuscular diseases are: Polymyositis. Inflammatory muscle disorders. Polymyalgia rheumatica (or "muscle rheumatism") is an inflammatory condition that mainly occurs in the elderly; it is associated with giant-cell arteritis (It often responds to prednisolone). [18] Polymyositis is an autoimmune condition in which the ...
Myopathy means muscle disease (Greek : myo- muscle + patheia -pathy : suffering). This meaning implies that the primary defect is within the muscle, as opposed to the nerves (" neuropathies " or " neurogenic " disorders) or elsewhere (e.g., the brain).
Starvation response in animals (including humans) is a set of adaptive biochemical and physiological changes, triggered by lack of food or extreme weight loss, in which the body seeks to conserve energy by reducing metabolic rate and/or non-resting energy expenditure to prolong survival and preserve body fat and lean mass.