How does pregnance and excercise affect creatinine clearance results?
People who exercise also likely have increased muscle mass, which will increase the level of creatinine in the blood (it is a normal breakdown product of muscle). Likewise, very strenuous exercise or muscle injury will increase creatinine levels in the blood due to increased breakdown. If creatinine is raised, then creatinine clearance will be elevated as well, and since it is used to estimate GFR (an indicator of kidney function), a high creatinine clearance will lead to an overestimation of GFR, and may possibly mask kidney disease, as an example. During pregnancy, there is an increase in GFR, so there should be a corresponding decrease in creatinine level (and increased clearance). But there are complications in pregnancy, notably preeclampsia, which will affect kidney function; the loss of kidney function will result in decreased GFR, which will show up as a decrease in creatinine clearance. Again, the point to take from this is that “normal” creatinine/creatinine clearance levels,
