What is the cause of glomerular reduction?

I believe everyone is familiar with the kidneys. They can remove harmful substances from human blood and play an important role in the human body. However, the glomerulus plays a decisive role in the kidneys, as it is the glomerulus that transmits harmful substances. Therefore, when testing kidney function in clinical medicine, we will pay attention to the number of glomeruli. So what is the reason for the decrease in the number of glomeruli? This article will briefly introduce this issue.

How does the glomerular filtration rate decrease? In order to clarify this issue, let us first analyze how the filtration function of the glomerulus is achieved.

Studies have found that glomerular filtration is achieved through two functions: one is the glomerular mechanical barrier function, and the other is the glomerular charge barrier function. Mechanical barrier function refers to the ability of the glomerulus to filter out small molecules but not large molecules. This ability allows large molecules in the blood to remain in the blood and small molecules to be sent to the urine. Since most blood toxins are small molecules, they are usually excreted into the urine. The so-called charge barrier refers to the ability of the glomerulus to allow positively charged substances to pass through, ensuring that negatively charged substances remain in the blood. Through the above two functions, the glomerulus ensures that small molecules with positive charge in the blood enter the urine during the filtration process. When the urine flows through the renal tubules, the renal tubules reabsorb some of the beneficial components in the urine into the blood through their own reabsorption ability, and excrete the harmful parts of the urine out of the body. Later, with further discoveries in medical science, people uncovered the secrets of the glomerular filtration function and the tubular reabsorption function. It was discovered that the mechanical barrier function of the glomerulus originates from a layer of functional cells on the capillary endothelium of the glomerulus - the capillary endothelial cells and the mesangial cells in the capillaries work together to act as a mechanical barrier. The charge barrier function of the glomerulus originates from a layer of functional cells on the outer epithelium of the glomerular capillaries - the capillary epithelial cells have the ability to control the passage of negatively charged substances. The combined action of these three functional cells enables the glomerulus to ensure that small molecules with positive charges in the blood are filtered into the urine during the filtration process. After the urine enters the renal tubules, a type of functional cell on the endothelium of the renal tubules - the renal tubular epithelial cells - reabsorb the positively charged substances in the urine that the human body needs. These four functional cells ensure that useful substances in the blood remain in the blood through multiple checks, while harmful substances enter the urine and are eventually excreted from the body. However, once the human body is invaded by disease, the first thing that will occur is changes in the composition of the human blood. This then causes the glomeruli and tubules to exceed their own workload capacity, resulting in damage or disruption of the original filtration balance. The essence of breaking this destruction is that one, two or all of the four functional cells mentioned above are destroyed. This study found that the decline in glomerular filtration function that people often talk about is actually the destruction of the functions of four functional cells in the glomerulus and renal tubules.

At this point, people have come to a meaningful conclusion: the decline in renal function is the result of a decline in the filtration and reabsorption functions of the renal functional units - the glomeruli and renal tubules. The reason for the decline in glomerular and tubular functions is the decline in the functions of the functional cells in the glomeruli and renal tubules - the glomerular capillary endothelial cells, mesangial cells, epithelial cells and epithelial cells in the renal tubules - which are destroyed and then destroyed. After this research, we finally found the real reason for the decrease in glomerular filtration rate - the function of the constituent cells of the renal functional units, that is, the kidney's inherent functional cells, decreases after being damaged.