Underestimation of urinary albumin to creatinine ratio in morbidly obese subjects due to high urinary creatinine excretion.

Link to article at PubMed

Underestimation of urinary albumin to creatinine ratio in morbidly obese subjects due to high urinary creatinine excretion.

Clin Nutr. 2011 Oct 24;

Authors: Guidone C, Gniuli D, Castagneto-Gissey L, Leccesi L, Arrighi E, Iaconelli A, Mingrone G

Abstract
BACKGROUD&AIMS: Albuminuria, a chronic kidney and/or cardiovascular disease biomarker, is currently measured as albumin-to-creatinine ratio (ACR). We hypothesize that in severely obese individuals ACR might be abnormally low in spite of relatively high levels of urinary albumin due to increased creatininuria. METHODS: One-hundred-eighty-four subjects were divided into tertiles based on their BMI. Fat-free mass (FFM) and fat-mass were assessed by DEXA; 24-h creatinine and albumin excretion, ACR, lipid profile and blood pressure were measured. RESULTS: Twenty-four-hour creatinine highly correlated (R = 0.75) with FFM. Since both creatininuria and albuminuria increased with the BMI, being the increase in creatininuria preponderant in subjects with BMI>35, their ratio (AC-ratio) did not change significantly from that of subjects in the lower BMI tertile. ACR only correlated with the systolic blood pressure, while both albuminuria and cretininuria correlated (P = 0.01) with the absolute 10-year CHD risk. In subjects with BMI>35, 100 mg of albumin excreted with urine increased the CHD risk of 2%. CONCLUSIONS: Albumin-to-creatinine ratio is underestimated in severely obese individuals as a consequence of the large creatininuria, which is proportional to the increased FFM. Therefore, at least in this population 24-h albuminuria should be more reliable than ACR.

PMID: 22030400 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

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