On Reddit, a cat has gone viral due to its bad condition, which makes it appear as if it has been doing additional gym sessions.
The cat suffers from Myostatin-related muscular hypertrophy, which leads it to grow muscle mass while not desiring to.
The disorder is caused by a mutation in the cat’s genes, which results in a lack of myostatin protein. As a result, when a problem with the disease emerges, it limits muscle cell proliferation, causing muscle mass to rapidly increase.
“House cat suffering from Myostatin-related muscular hypertrophy – an uncommon disorder that causes muscles to become overly huge,” user bsmith2123 commented on the r/Damnthatsinteresting subreddit, captioning the photo.
As you might expect, people were quickly enthralled by what they were seeing. “I bet he purrs like an engine,” one guy speculated.
“No Sarah, I don’t think I’ll get off the table,”
another laughed.
“He meows in an Austrian accent,” claimed a third.
Cats aren’t the only ones that can be affected by this disease. Cattle, rats, lambs, dogs, and even humans are said to be affected. You may wonder whether this is a good or terrible thing for animals, and according to Popular Science, it has both negative and positive consequences depending on the organism.
While it will certainly assist racing whippets, Thoroughbred horses, and other animals that are naturally built to be fast, it may have a negative impact on others that aren’t.
“Each of us has two copies of the gene encoding myostatin,” says Popular Science. You become heterozygous for the gene if you inherit one mutant copy, and animals with that pattern are unusually muscular and strong without being so clearly odd that people write case reports about them.
“Only when you’re homozygous, which means you have two mutant copies, do you become an outlier.”
