cachexia

"This discovery could have implications for cancer patients who experience cachexia, or muscle wasting due to the disease and its treatments."

Even if cachexia doesn’t directly kill a patient, it makes them sicker, weaker, and less able to tolerate chemotherapy and radiation treatments.

Several years earlier, other international forensics experts had already rejected the official cause of death as cachexia, or weakness and wasting of the body due to chronic illness — in his case, cancer.

He had been suffering from prostate cancer and his death certificate said he died of "cancerous cachexia" - a wasting away caused by the disease.

It found inmates were "significantly malnourished" and dealing with a condition called cachexia, also known as wasting syndrome.