Your Kidney- An Important Filter and More

I’ve grown up with a love of cars and learned to repair them from a young age. I started out by helping my father change the oil in the car and progressed to maintaining my own cars in high school. I was always intrigued by the way the different parts of the engine and transmission worked together to get sustained power to the wheels. These were the days before computers were an integral part of modern cars. Today, computers in a car work a little like our bodies, and since March is National Kidney Month, let’s see how your kidney is a computer that helps provide sustained power to your body.

You have two fist sized kidneys, one on either side of your spine in your lower back and, like computers, they are small but enormously powerful. It seems to me that our body has back up plans for organs and functions that are critical to our well-being. You can lose the function of one kidney, or donate it to another in need, and still be 100% healthy.

As I talk a little more about your magical, mystical kidneys, I’ll also include a bolded annotation like [Albumin]. As you know, I’m a great believer in people taking control and responsibility for their own health, which includes understanding the results of tests the doctors do as they assess our health. I’ll include an explanation later about test annotations and what the range should be when they show up on your normal test results that you get from your doctor. Some tests are more advanced and are not done unless there is reason to believe a problem may exist. I’m talking about the basic tests done by your doctor.

Like the oil filter on your car, your kidney filters the bad things out of your blood. The kidneys filters about 200 quarts of fluid every 24 hours. Approximately two quarts are eliminated from the body in the form of urine, while the remainder is retained in the body. The urine we excrete is stored in the bladder for approximately one to eight hours. I’ve found as I get older, it’s more toward the one hour than the eight. The kidney goes beyond just being a filter by also retaining the good things it finds during the filtering process and keeping a healthy balance between different chemicals that are important to your body’s functions. One of these good things is Albumin, Albumin is important because it helps build muscle, repair tissue, and fight infections. That’s why the kidney filters it, so it doesn’t find its way into the waste. It’s usually not good when you have Albumin in your urine. [Albumin]

Like the oxygen sensors in your car that keeps the fuel air mixture at the optimum levels in your car, the kidney senses when to produce more red blood cells which helps your body maintain health and fight disease. Two chemicals it filters out are Creatinine and Cystatin C. Both these chemicals are either a byproduct of digesting proteins or produced by your cells. Advance tests use the measurements of these chemicals to determine your kidney’s health.

Blood urea nitrogen is another waste product that your kidney removes. Thank goodness, I can’t imagine that anyone would want something called blood urea nitrogen building up in your body. [BUN]

Potassium is critical to your body, it does things like helping your heart to beat regularly and your muscles to work. As with most things, too much or too little of something is not a good thing. Either too much or too little can signal possible problems. [Potassium]

As you might guess Sodium is another chemical that needs to be regulated. The same stipulation of the “goldilocks effect” of not too little, not too much, but just right, applies here. Sodium is critical to your nerves and muscles working properly. [Sodium]

I always thought that CO2 as just something your lungs extract and expel as you breathe, but there is some that is retained in your blood to make sure your blood doesn’t get too acidic. Your kidney along with your lungs work to keep this level balanced. [CO2]

Before I get to the explanations of the bolded annotations a word of clarification. The normal range may differ slightly from one source to another. For instance, my blood test results showed a CO2 normal range of 18 – 32 but the National Kidney Foundation said,

“A bicarbonate/CO2 level less than 22 mEq/L can be a sign your blood has too much acid – talk with your healthcare professional about a treatment plan if your labs show a CO2 (bicarbonate) level less than 22.”

Which brings me to an important disclaimer, taking charge of your health doesn’t mean making your own diagnosis. When you look at your blood test results, they should only generate questions that you ask your doctor, who can give you their assessment based on YOUR health. One important question when you are reviewing test results is, “are there any normal ranges on my tests that should be altered depending on my personal health status? Here are the ranges for the different tests that affect your kidney health.

[Albumin] 3.5 – 5.7

[BUN] 7 - 27

[Potassium] 3.5 – 5.1

[Sodium] 133 - 147

[CO2] 18 (or 22) – 32

Your kidney is truly a magical mystical organ that is better than any car computer, even one on an electrical car. There is a problem if we choose to take our car in to get serviced more often than we get our own bodies looked at. There are many tests that can identify problems with our kidneys, but they won’t be of any use if we don’t get checked. This is a good month to get that done.

Best, Thair