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Muscle Protein Degradation Rate

Meaning

Muscle Protein Degradation Rate refers to the quantifiable speed at which complex proteins within skeletal muscle tissue are broken down into their constituent amino acids. This catabolic process is a necessary part of normal muscle remodeling and repair, but an excessively high rate, particularly one that significantly exceeds the rate of synthesis, leads to a net loss of muscle mass, or muscle atrophy. This rate is a key physiological variable in clinical conditions like sarcopenia, cachexia, and high-stress states characterized by muscle wasting.