Normal Values for Creatinine and Blood Urea Nitrogen (BUN)

Measuring the levels of serum creatinine and blood urea nitrogen (BUN) is useful for evaluating renal dysfunction. Understanding the meaning of high creatinine and high BUN will help patients with kidney diseases know more clearly about their illness condition.

What is the normal range for serum creatinine?

What is creatinine? Creatinine is a by-product breakdown of muscle creatinine phosphate resulting from energy metabolism. Creatinine production is continuous and is in proportional to muscle mass. Creatinine is filtered freely by the kidneys and therefore the serum creatinine level depends on glomerular filtration rate (GFR). The kidneys have good compensatory functions, so when the kidneys are mildly damaged, creatinine will not increase. When creatinine increases, glomerular filtration rate (GFR) is considered to have been halved.

What is normal range of serum creatinine? Normal range of serum creatinine level will differ with age, gender and physical constitute. In adult men, normal range of serum creatinine is 0.9-1.3mg/dl; while in adult women, normal range of creatinine is 0.6 to 1.1mg/dl.

A muscular young man will have a higher normal creatinine result than the senior people with poorer health conditions.

In children, the normal range of creatinine is 0.2 to 1.0mg/dl but will increase with age as there is better and better physical constitute and muscle buildup.

Two units are often used to measure creatinine level, this is, mg/dl and umol/l. 1 mg/dl equals to 88.4umol/l.

To be noted, reference value of serum creatinine may differ in different countury, so it is necessary to know the reference range in your country so as to know whether the creatinine result is high.

How to lower high creatinine? Diet plays such an important role. Here you can learn foods to avoid with high creatinine.

What is the normal range of blood urea nitrogen?

Blood urea nitrogen (BUN) measures the amount of urea nitrogen in bloodstream. Urea is formed in liver as the end product of protein metabolism and digestion. Urea is transported to the kidneys for excretion.

A normal range for blood urea nitrogen is generally 8 to 24 mg/dl for adult males and 6 to 21 mg/dl for females. Generally, a high blood urea nitrogen level means that the kidneys are not performing well, particularly if the result is above 50mg/dl. But, an elevated blood urea nitrogen may be due to urinary tract obstruction, congestive heart failure, certain medicines, fever, etc. In those cases, BUN level can be lowered after the inducing causes are remitted.

If you have no idea what causes your high BUN level, you can chat with our online medical professional now and he can help analyze your condition and then give a reply.

What if both serum creatinine and blood urea nitrogen levels are high?

Some temporary factors, such as eating too much meat or strenuous exercise, may cause a slight higher creatinine level. Blood urea nitrogen may also get elevated due to some inducing factors. If both of two levels are high and become a persistent issue, it means that the kidneys have been damaged severely and active treatments to protect kidneys and prevent further renal damage are quite important. You will be suggested to treat renal diseases timely, and by means of this you will have chance to get kidneys improved.

Still unclear about your creatinine and blood urea nitrogen results? Email to kidneycares@hotmail.com for advice from experts.