Patients with kidney disease often need blood tests to detect the progress of the disease. Many patients are confused about the various values on the test sheet. They are often only sensitive to the value creatinine . Knowing that a high creatinine indicates a serious kidney disease problem , I don’t understand the others. In fact, patients with kidney disease should not only look at creatinine when looking at the laboratory test sheet. It is also necessary to look at another value, and carbon dioxide . The lower the value, the better. If it is lower, it may lead to an increase in blood creatinine.
What does serum creatinine mean, and why do patients with kidney disease need to read it?
Creatinine is the product of normal metabolism of our human muscles in the body. Under normal circumstances, every 20g of muscle metabolism of the body will produce 1mg of creatinine. In daily life, there are two main sources of our blood creatinine. One of them is the above-mentioned product of normal muscle metabolism in the body, and the other comes from our diet. When we eat a lot of meat, It is easy to cause an increase in blood creatinine . This is exogenous creatinine, which often rises temporarily. Once you resume a normal diet, it will return to normal.
Under normal circumstances, when our diet is at a normal level, the concentration of creatinine in the blood is related to the glomerular filtration capacity of the kidneys. We all know that glomerular damage is often the beginning of kidney disease, glomerulus Damage will affect the normal filtration of creatinine in the blood, thereby causing blood creatinine concentration to increase . Therefore, patients with kidney disease often have to monitor the concentration of blood creatinine. If the blood creatinine is significantly too high or rises abnormally while eating a normal diet, it is often necessary to consider glomerular damage. Generally, the glomerular filtration rate drops to that of normal people. One-third of or more than will lead to an increase in blood creatinine concentration.
Increased blood creatinine is often due to decreased glomerular filtration function, which may be caused by renal failure. Under normal circumstances, the reference range of blood creatinine is 44-133. It does not have to exceed the standard to be dangerous. As long as is approaching a dangerously high value, attention should be paid . Because creatinine is a substance produced by normal muscle metabolism, if you are a strong man who works out and has a lot of muscles, you will often have the problem of high blood creatinine. This problem is generally not serious and is a normal phenomenon. Don't worry too much.
In addition to blood creatinine, there is actually another value on the test sheet that we can all recognize. Carbon dioxide CO2 and our blood creatinine value are inseparable from kidney health.
What does carbon dioxide represent and how is it related to kidney health?
First of all, we all know that our body produces carbon dioxide through respiration. Part of the carbon dioxide is directly excreted from the body through lung respiration, and the other part is synthesized in the body through carbonic acid, and is excreted through kidney metabolism.. If the blood carbon dioxide level is found to be low, it may indicate that the carbonic acid content generated from carbon dioxide has increased, and there is a problem with kidney metabolism. If ignored, it may aggravate kidney damage. And if a large amount of carbonic acid cannot be excreted from the body, it may lead to metabolic acidosis and cause a decrease in blood carbon dioxide levels.
Therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to the blood carbon dioxide content during kidney testing. Generally, when the blood carbon dioxide content is too low, metabolic acidosis may occur. . If the carbon dioxide content is too high, the acid generated by carbon dioxide will be reduced, resulting in acidosis. An imbalance in the base balance may lead to a risk of metabolic alkalosis . Under normal circumstances, the reference value of blood carbon dioxide is 23-31mmol/L. If a single test appears to be too high or too low, don’t panic. may be a transient increase, and you can conduct several more tests Then make sure.
Kidney damage often progresses little by little. If you don't pay attention to protecting the kidneys in life, kidney disease will gradually worsen. Nephritis , kidney failure, uremia will become more and more serious step by step. In daily life, we should learn to protect the kidneys. As long as we take care of them in time, we can avoid the rapid development of the disease and maintain our health.
What should we pay attention to in protecting the kidneys in life?
. Drink more water
Many patients with kidney disease may often urinate profusely and thus dare not drink water. In fact, drinking water is good for protecting the kidneys. Long-term insufficient drinking of water will lead to an increase in blood concentration and the concentration of harmful substances in the blood. It also increases , which increases the burden on the kidneys and worsens the condition. Under normal circumstances, it is advisable to drink about two liters of water every day. In hot weather, if you sweat a lot, you can increase the amount of water you drink.
. Timely treatment of urinary tract infection inflammation
Cystitis, Prostatitis , Urinary tract infection and other diseases are often ignored because they do not cause obvious serious damage to the body. In fact, if the inflammation of these urinary tract infections is not treated in time , coupled with factors such as holding back urine, it is possible to cause kidney infection and inflammation and directly cause damage to the kidneys, so these diseases should be treated immediately if they occur.
. Eat less high-oil and high-protein foods
In daily life, focus on a light diet, low in oil and salt, and eat more fruits and vegetables. In daily life, avoid eating more high-protein foods, and mainly consume high-quality protein. Fish is recommended here. Fish itself is high-quality protein and is easy to digest and absorb, putting less pressure on the kidneys. However, fish itself is high in purines, and excessive purines require kidney metabolism. Therefore, you need to choose low-purine fish. You can usually choose salmon, herring, flounder, cod, etc. Shellfish, caviar and other aquatic products are high in purine , so try to avoid eating them in daily life.
Although kidney damage is irreversible, we only need to stop the damage in time and pay attention to maintenance in daily life to slow down the progression of the disease and reduce the risk of severe kidney disease. Regardless of whether you have kidney disease or not, you should drink more water, exercise more, and urinate in time in your daily life. This can help reduce the burden on the kidneys and reduce the progression of the disease.
Reference:
"How much sodium bicarbonate should be supplemented in metabolic acidosis?" 》Emergency time 2022-03-03
"Three items of kidney function can be used to preliminarily screen kidney function and teach you to understand the results of kidney function tests" Yangtze Evening News 2015-07-27
"Kidney protection starts with living habits" Global Network Health Community 2008-08 -11
