Muscle atrophy, or disuse atrophy, is defined as a decrease in the mass of the muscle; it can be a partial or complete wasting away of muscle. When a muscle atrophies, this leads to muscle weakness, since the ability to exert force is related to mass. Muscle atrophy results from a co-morbidity of several common diseases, including cancer, AIDS, congestive heart failure, COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), renal failure, and severe burns; patients who have "cachexia" in these disease settings have a poor prognosis. Moreover, starvation eventually leads to muscle atrophy. Disuse of the muscles will also lead to atrophy.
Read more about Muscle Atrophy: Clinical Settings of Atrophy, Quality of Life, Other Muscles Diseases, Distinct From Atrophy, Pathophysiology, Potential Treatment, Quantification, Hibernation
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“The three great problems of this century, the degradation of man in the proletariat, the subjection of women through hunger, the atrophy of the child by darkness.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)