What are the functions of creatinine?

Creatinine is actually a product of muscle metabolism in the human body, and we can use its indicators to understand our physical condition. For example, if we suffer from acute or chronic glomerulonephritis or impaired glomerular filtration function, blood creatinine may increase.

1. Creatinine (Cre) is the product of muscle metabolism in the human body. Every 20g of muscle metabolism can produce 1mg of creatinine. Creatinine is mainly excreted from the body by glomerular filtration. Creatinine in the blood comes from both exogenous and endogenous sources. Exogenous creatinine is the product of meat metabolism in the body; endogenous creatinine is the product of muscle tissue metabolism in the body. When the intake of meat food is stable and there is no major change in the body's muscle metabolism, the production of creatinine will be relatively constant.

2. Clinical Significance

(1) When acute or chronic glomerulonephritis causes decreased glomerular filtration function, blood creatinine may increase. At the same time, the blood creatinine value should be measured interspersed with the known endogenous creatinine clearance rate as an indicator for follow-up observation.

(2) It is more meaningful to measure urea nitrogen and creatinine values ​​at the same time. If both are elevated at the same time, it indicates that the kidneys are seriously damaged. The formula for endogenous creatinine clearance is Ccr=(140-age)×body weight (kg)/72×Scr(mg/dl) or Ccr=[(140-age)×body weight (kg)]/[0.818×Scr(umol/L)]. During the calculation of endogenous creatinine clearance, attention should be paid to the unit of creatinine. For women, the calculated result is multiplied by 0.85.

3. Diet

1. Salt restriction: Generally speaking, although patients in the compensatory stage of renal insufficiency and azotemia stage have high blood creatinine and begin to show various mild clinical symptoms, due to moderate pathological damage, salt intake can be controlled depending on the presence or absence of hypertension and edema, and a low-salt or salt-free diet can be given.

2. Vitamin intake: Patients with renal failure and high creatinine should choose foods rich in vitamin A, vitamin B2 and vitamin C. If the renal insufficiency only causes high creatinine level due to renal failure, but there is no oliguria or edema, the patient does not need to stop drinking salt and water, but should maintain a low-salt diet. If you have severe edema, high blood pressure or even heart failure, you should strictly limit your salt intake.

3. Protein supply: Because patients in this stage develop azotemia and renal insufficiency, in order to control the continued deterioration of renal function, protein intake should be controlled and a diet rich in high-quality protein should be selected.