Why Creatinine Level Increases with Kidney Disease

Creatinine level increases when we are diagnosed with kidney disease, because kidney is responsible for discharging excessive creatinine in blood.

What is creatinine?

Creatinine is a break-down product of meat and muscle in our body, so serum creatinine level can be affected by our diet and kidney condition. In normal cases, creatinine is filtered and then discharged by our kidney. Creatinine get out of our body with urine, so creatinine can be detected out in the urine. Since kidneys are responsible for keeping a normal creatinine level, when kidney function is impaired, serum creatinine increases.

Why high creatinine level is dangerous?

Creatinine is a toxin and together with other toxins, they are discharged out of our body by our kidneys. High creatinine level indicates kidneys have failed to discharge these toxic substances and there are lots of toxins in the blood. Usually, the higher the creatinine level, the more toxins in the blood.

These toxins circulate with blood and they may reach any part of our body. They are harmful to our internal organs, so kidney disease patients with high serum creatinine are at high risk to develop many other health tissues like heart failure, neuropathy, bone problems, digestive problems and blood disease and so on. Also, some of them are life-threatening, so it is of great importance for kidney disease patients to control their serum creatinine level.

How to lower serum creatinine with kidney disease?

When kidney function is affected, kidney excretory function decreases, so creatinine build up in the blood and high creatinine level occurs. In kidney disease, dialysis or kidney transplant will be needed to clean blood when serum creatinine level increases to 5. Therefore, bringing serum creatinine level under control is very necessary. To have a tight control about creatinine in the blood, the following several steps are essential:

1. Have a change about their diet.

Creatinine is produced during the metabolism of muscle and meat, so eating less meat will help to reduce the generation of creatinine. Besides, to avoid worsening kidney condition, which can also lead to increased creatinine level as well, kidney disease patients also need to high-protein diet, high-salt diet, high potassium diet and high phosphorus diet if lab tests show high levels of potassium and phosphorus.

2. Improve kidney condition

For a damaged kidney, there are healthy, injured and dead renal cells. We can not resurrect these dead kidney cells, but we can repair these injured kidney cells and make them function again. When much more kidney cells function, kidney condition get increased and much more creatinine are discharged. Therefore, serum creatinine level is lowered.