In mechanically ventilated ICU patients, plasma GDF-15 levels above 1,722 pg/ml on day 7 providing strong diagnostic performance (AUC 0.904, sensitivity 94.0%) associated with muscle atrophy, and higher levels were associated with significantly lower 90-day survival rate than the low levels group (54.00% vs. 75.56%) [15]. This evidence concerns the gene GDF15 and muscle atrophy.