This site is intended for healthcare professionals

Go to /sign-in page

You can view 5 more pages before signing in

Cachexia

Last reviewed dd mmm yyyy. Last edited dd mmm yyyy

Authoring team

Cachexia is a state of severe weight loss, muscle wasting and enfeeblement caused by serious disease. Both fat and protein are lost. The metabolic derangements are similar to those seen in marasmus.

Commonly associated with malignancy, cachexia is also a feature of cardiac failure, failure of the gastro- intestinal tract to absorb nutrients, alcoholism and pulmonary tuberculosis.

The cytokine interleukin-1 may be involved in the pathogenesis of some forms of cachexia.


Related pages

Create an account to add page annotations

Annotations allow you to add information to this page that would be handy to have on hand during a consultation. E.g. a website or number. This information will always show when you visit this page.