KIDNEY DISEASE

medical condition

the kidney can't filtrate the metabolic waste products from the blood

Reduced glomerular filtration rate (GFR)

if untreated --> kidney failure --> lethal

Function of healthy kidneys

  1. Osmoregulation
  1. Urine formation (removing waste)

Steps:

  1. Ultrafiltration: takes place in the glomerulus and Bowman's capsule. Glomerular blood vessels are fenestrated to allows SIZE-SELECTIVE filtration.
  1. Selective reabsorption: In the proximal convoluted tube and distal tube. Here the useful materials are reabsorbed into the blood from the filtrate.
  1. Osmoregulation: Loop of Henle. It is the control of solute concentrations and water in bodily fluids

SIZE-SELECTIVE FILTRATION: Kidneys prevent the excretion of blood cells and proteins due to the sile-selective pores in the glomerular walls.

Kidneys prevent the excretion of glucose by reabsorbing it into the blood to be used in respiration or stored.

Detecting kidney disease

Urinary tests: If glucose, blood cells, toxins or proteins are present in urine, they indicate disease

Glucose: indicates possible DIABETES since high blood glucose results in incomplete reabsorption. Method: The health care provider uses a dipstick made with a color-sensitive pad. The color the dipstick changes to tells the provider the level of glucose in your urine.

Proteins: can indicate diseases such as PKU (phenylketonuria) or hormonal conditions such as hCG (indicates pregnancy). Method: the urine albumin-to-creatinine ratio

Blood cells: can indicate urinary infection (since in an infections white blood cells accumulate in the site of damage to fight the infection) or cancer. Method: urinalysis

Toxins or drugs: these can be detected and classified as performance enhancing rugs for example. Method: The Comprehensive Urine Element Profile

Statistics:

  1. Kidney disease is more common in women (14%) than men (12%)

Sample urine test: https://www.accesalabs.com/Urinalysis-Test

BLOOD in urine can indicate NEPHRITIS which is swelling of the nephrons reducing the kidney's ability to filtrate waste from blood. Other symptoms of this include high blood pressure, decreased urine output and swelling of the body.

https://medlineplus.gov/lab-tests/glucose-in-urine-test/

  1. Leukocytes in urine: A normal range in the urine is lower than in the blood, and may be from 0-5 WBCs per high power field (wbc/hpf).

Detection of manipulation in doping control urine sample collection: a multidisciplinary approach to determine identical urine samples: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17260133/

Sports drug testing: Analytical aspects of selected cases of suspected, purported, and proven urine manipulation https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21955645/