Naval, Carl Jendreik L.

Critique Paper in RAWS

Linnaeus – 11

Agustí, A. G., Sauleda, J., Miralles, C., Gomez, C., Togores, B., Sala, E., et al. (2002). Skeletal
muscle apoptosis and weight loss in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. American
Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, 166:485–489.

In “Skeletal Muscle Apoptosis and Weight Loss In Chronic Obstructive

Pulmonary Disease”, the researchers studied the effect of chronic obstructive pulmonary
disease (COPD) on skeletal muscle apoptosis and weight loss. The researchers hypothesized
that the reason patients with COPD were experiencing weight loss is because of skeletal
muscle apoptosis. This knowledge is relevant because it also has correlation with other chronic
diseases that may affect the body in the same way like chronic heart failure. (Goshker,
Wouters, Van der Vusse, & Schols, 2000). The information gathered and provided is
professionally made, but it is difficult to grasp on the information provided if you are a layman.

As a layman myself, I had a hard time reading the article for the first time for
reasons I will delve deeper in this critique paper. The article is short but packed with all the
information you need on the possible effect of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease on
skeletal muscle apoptosis and in turn, weight loss. The difficulty in reading it comes from the
use of terminology that is not familiar to me. I believe that articles should be able to be
understood by everyone, not just the people that study in those specific fields. It required me to
go out and find the information myself about the things that are tackled in the article. It took me
more time reading about the basic concepts and techniques used rather than reading and
understanding the article itself. After reading it I still have multiple questions about the article
that I am still confused about.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or COPD for short is a common lung

disease that makes breathing hard for anyone affected (American Accreditation HealthCare
Commission, 2019). Apoptosis is the programmed death of cells that occur during the end of
an organism’s growth or development that is important for cells inside the body. (Elmore,
2007). Skeletal muscles are muscles that are specifically tailored to be able to generate force
for movement. (University of California, San Diego, 2000). The relationships of these factors
are studied and results show that people with COPD have more apoptotic cells that possibly
cause weight loss. There is also a correlation where the more inactive a person is, the more
apoptotic cells because they have lower exercise tolerance. The information given is
descriptive but it is not clear and concise. The way it was worded makes it hard for a layman,
for example a patient with COPD, to understand what the results are pertaining to or are
alluding to. The research does not leave a stone unturned, multiple groups took part in this
study. The exercise tolerance of patients with COPD with low body mass index (BMI), patients
with COPD with normal BMI, orthopedic patients, and healthy people were measured and
compared against each other. They measured the amount of apoptotic cells by conducting a
biopsy, an examination of tissue removed from a living body, on the patients on their
quadriceps femoris, a muscle at the mid-thigh level. Consent forms were given to the
participants of the study and the code of ethics were followed.

In the end, the researchers we’re still able to provide everything for the readers,
but my qualms with it is that it is difficult to understand. They used too many jargon to explain
almost everything. The difficult part about it is that the researchers did not go through the
trouble of thoroughly explaining the jargon used in the article. I spent more of my time
researching and understanding the concepts that are unfamiliar to me than actually reading it.
The introduction did not expand on the terms introduced, there were seven jargon used just in
the first paragraph. The methods provided were lacking in chronological organization, it was
hard to understand what the process was. Despite that, the methodology part of the article still
had organization in it that made it a tad bit easier to digest. The methods were separated into
their own paragraphs, but the use of jargon is still a problem. It also contains the ethics, and
the statistical analysis that the researchers used. The results and discussion page were the
easiest to understand in the whole article. I commend the researchers for providing illustrations
and tables with adequate explanations. The results, despite not being as clear and concise as I
would want it to be, still get its point across. Possible uses for the information gathered from
the study are thoroughly discussed in the discussions part of the article. Lastly, the limitations
of the study are also acknowledged and recommendations are properly given at the end.
 In conclusion, I think that this article is very well researched and studied, by
people that are passionate about their study. My main problem with the article is that it uses
too much jargon. That does not detract from the professionality of the article, but it does hurt
the reading experience for most people. The jargons used are very scientific terms that laymen
would have not been able to hear or study about in a real world setting. It is difficult to read for
the first time without researching the meaning of the terminologies and techniques used in the
article, this will in turn make it harder to understand the information because you need to
understand multiple basic and complex concepts before fully understanding the article. Next is
that I am having trouble understanding how the researchers conducted the methodology
because it is not chronologically arranged, but they were still able to explain the information
needed on how they conducted it and what they did to prepare for the experimentation. I also
had a hard time understanding how they did their statistical analysis because they did not fully
explain everything that they needed to. They introduce too many jargons that are quite hard to
understand for first time readers. Most of the time, the article just feels like a mess of jargon
soup, filled of scientific terminologies that sound like something that came from science fiction
for the layman. The way that the information was relayed is not very beginner friendly.

Bibliography
Agustí, A. G., Sauleda, J., Miralles, C., Gomez, C., Togores, B., Sala, E., et al. (2002). Skeletal
muscle apoptosis and weight loss in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. American
Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, 166:485–489.

American Accreditation HealthCare Commission. (2019, July 31). Retrieved August 12, 2019,
from Medline Plus: https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/000091.htm

Elmore, S. (2007). Apoptosis: A review of programmed cell death. Toxicologic Pathology,

35:495–516.

Goshker, H., Wouters, E., Van der Vusse, G., & Schols, A. (2000). Skeletal muscle dysfunction
in COPD and chronic heart failure: Underlying mechanisms and therapy perspectives.
The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 71:1033– 1047.

University of California, San Diego. (2000). Retrieved August 12, 2019, from Muscle
Physiology: http://muscle.ucsd.edu/musintro/over.shtml