What is hypertrophy?

• A. An anatomical enlargement of a cell or tissue.
• B. A decrease in tissue size due to atrophy.
• C. Inflammation of tissue.
• D. A loss of cell mass due to necrosis.

Answer: (A)

Hypertrophy refers to the enlargement of cells, which leads to a larger tissue. This happens when cells increase their size by making more structural components and proteins in response to greater workload or signaling, such as muscles growing with resistance training. It’s about cells getting bigger, not more numerous. This is different from atrophy, which is a loss of tissue size; it’s not an inflammatory process, and it’s not cell death from necrosis. So the description that matches hypertrophy is the anatomical enlargement of a cell or tissue.