Any disease marked especially by progressive emaciation and weakness. (Dorland, 28th ed, p490)
a condition characterized by atrophy of lean body mass and involuntary weight loss of more than 10% of normal body weight. Other symptoms may include chronic diarrhea, fatigue, weakness, and fever. Death typically occurs when body weight falls to one-third of ideal weight, or when body cell mass decreases by 50%. AIDS-related wasting differs from starvation in that during starvation metabolism slows to conserve the body’s protein stores and fat is broken down, while in AIDS-related wasting, the body burns muscle and organ tissue (lean body mass) to meet the body’s energy requirements.
A condition characterized by involuntary weight loss of more than 10% of baseline body weight plus either chronic diarrhea or chronic weakness and fever for more than 30 days, when these conditions cannot be explained by any illness other than HIV infection.
See AIDS Wasting Syndrome.