As people grow older, their muscles begin to weaken, and they may start feeling the effects of muscular atrophy — a condition where the muscle wastes away. One University of Iowa researcher hopes to solve this problem by studying the condition.

UI internal medicine Professor Christopher Adams has studied muscular atrophy at the molecular level. The condition is caused by a lack of muscle use, aging, malnutrition, or illness that leads patients to have weakened muscles.

Adams and his colleagues are studying the nature of human muscle through biopsies when muscular atrophy occurs, he said, compared to people without the condition.

Read the complete story by Kelsey Harrell at The Daily Iowan.