I know malnutrition can cause it but so can other things. I thougt it was like an auto immune situation but I don;t understand it. Also, why does it show up in blood work.
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Muscles are expensive to maintain, so whenever the body doesn’t have enough food to do so (malnutrition) or it feels the muscles aren’t used and are a waste of ressources (long-term immobilisation), it gets rid of them. There are also other causes of course (for example, when the nerves of a muscle aren’t functional, it’s cut from the brain and stimulation, thus is considered useless and is wasted ; or when an old person falls and can’t get up, hours of muscles being pressured by bones in the same place ends up killing them).
It shows up in blood works while it’s ongoing because the muscle cells release their contents on death, and those can be measured.
As for the muscles coming back, depends on the cause, but usually they can (malnutrition is curable), though it can be hard on vulnerable people already fragilized.
It’s just a case of ‘use it or lose it’. The body adapts to the stresses upon it (or tries to), and maintains a level of muscle mass according to activity level/type and diet. Astronauts lose muscle and bone mass in space due to lack of straining against gravity. Bedridden people lose it too from lack of activity. Muscle can usually be gained back quickly with the activity and diet to support it.
There are also various diseases that have the effect of muscle wasting, for reasons like gradually losing the ability to control the muscles so they waste away, or being unable to make muscle protein. Many anabolic steroids were originally designed to help grow or maintain muscle in these and bedridden patients.
With mild atrophy you can regain full function as the actual cells remain but their contents decrease. The cells are ready and waiting to plump back up with use.
In some severe atrophy some of the cells may be removed, which makes it hard to regain full size.
As for blood work, a slow controlled atrophy won’t do a lot to the blood but the disassembly leaves chemistry behind which can be measured. Uncontrolled muscle damage though like say crushing damage or a severe change in exercise can cause a rapid rise in certain compounds that can hurt you (kidney failure).
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