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#VIRAL: Cat goes viral for having big muscles like going to the gym.

by KittyCat

A cat on Reddit has gone viral for being absolutely stacked with muscle. But before you ask the tabby what its gym routine or diet plan is, the cat actually has very little choice in being so ripped. According to the person who posted the image, this feline suffers from Myostatin-related muscle hypertrophy. People were shocked to see the cat sitting by the window looking like it could be a bouncer at a club. One user wrote: "I bet he purrs like an engine." Another said: "Cat gonna cuddle you into submission." A third added: "This the cat she tells you not to worry about." Myostatin-related muscle hypertrophy is a rare condition that causes an animal to continue building muscle even though it might not be intending to. Myostatin is a protein that is produced by the body that inhibits muscle cell growth. Most bodies are made up of conflicting signals that tell us to either grow muscle or prevent muscle from growing. It's a balance that keeps the majority of us looking rather normal. However, if there are deficiencies in the myostatin protein, then an individual is able to pile on the bulk and look like they've been working out non-stop. Cattle, sheep, whippets, and humans have all shown evidence of lacking Myostatin and it looks like the deficiency can also happen in cats, as evidenced by the feline on Reddit. 's a fairly rare condition that only comes about during a mutation in a gene process. Popular Science writes: "Each of us has two copies of the gene encoding myostatin. Inheriting one mutated copy makes you heterozygous for the gene, and animals with that pattern are unusually muscular and strong without being so obviously abnormal that people write case reports about it. "It's only when you're homozygous, meaning you have two mutated copies, that you become something of an anomaly." Interestingly, all this muscle isn't necessarily a good thing when it comes to an evolutionary perspective. While you would think all these buff animals would have outbred the competition, some species can actually be negatively impacted by the bulk. It actually pays to have just one mutation of the gene, rather than two that creates all that muscle. The fastest whippets and horses were found to be heterozygous in separate studies. So, while some people might want to look absolutely stacked, it could be more beneficial if you still have a little bit of myostatin in your body.

  • Duration: 00:32

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