Having received a sheet with a printout of a biochemical blood test, you can find the “urea” indicator in it. "What it is?" patients ask.
Modern hematology devices that perform blood tests and automatically calculate the results also indicate whether this indicator is increased or decreased. It is not surprising that the discovery of ominous inscriptions that there is some kind of change scares people. “I have low or high urea in my blood. What is it and what does it threaten me with? - such questions are heard in the therapist's office and driven into the browser search bar. Let's try to figure it out.
What kind of substance: urea
From the point of view of chemistry, it is a diamide of carbonic acid. In the body of humans and animals, this substance is one of the end products of the breakdown of protein molecules. Complex proteins are broken down to simple ones, then the turn of the second comes. As a result, the body receives the amino acids that make up the protein molecules. And after the splitting of the latter, a toxic substance is formed -ammonia. It is carried by the bloodstream to the liver, where, through several biochemical reactions, urea is formed from it. What it is is now clear.
Why do we measure blood urea?
What happens next with this substance? It is not used for anything in the body and must be completely removed from the body. It is excreted from the body through the kidneys with urine.
Thus, for a doctor performing a biochemical blood test, urea, or rather, its quantity, is an indicator of the quality of the kidneys, their functional ability. It is also possible to indirectly investigate the function of the liver, which synthesizes these organic molecules. This is the purpose for which the line “urea” is present on the blood test sheet. What it is, and why doctors determine how much it is in our body, we figured it out. Now it’s worth talking about what the deviations of its values in the blood from normal values mean.
The significance of changes in the content of this substance
Elevated blood urea is observed when:
- diet errors (high protein intake);
- increased physical activity and diseases with protein breakdown (tumors, severe chronic ailments, endocrine disorders);
- diseases of the kidneys, heart, blood vessels (pyelonephritis, glomerulonephritis, amyloidosis, heart failure, anomalies of the renal vessels).
A decrease in blood urea occurs when:
- vegetarianism (low consumptionproteins);
- liver lesions (hepatitis, cirrhosis, neoplasms);
- intestinal diseases with impaired digestion of proteins and absorption of amino acids (inflammation, postoperative conditions, parasitic lesions);
- diseases of the pancreas, accompanied by a decrease in the secretion of enzymes (pancreatitis).
In general, it became clear that the “urea” indicator is used to assess the functions of the kidneys and liver, but even if a deviation from the norm is found in the blood, you should not panic. It is necessary to study the amount of urea in the urine, as well as pay attention to assessing other indicators of the work of these internal organs.
