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Why do the adrenal glands become smaller soon after birth?
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atrophy
One example of atrophy is the progressive loss of bone that occurs in osteoporosis (normal bone shown on left; osteoporotic bone shown on right).
The adrenal glands undergo a reduction in size shortly after birth because an inner layer of the adrenal cortex shrinks. This process is a form of physiologic atrophy, which refers to the normal decrease in size of a body part or tissue under specific physiologic circumstances.1