AUTHOR=Koch Vera H. 

TITLE=Obesity Facts and Their Influence on Renal Function Across the Life Span

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Medicine

VOLUME=Volume 8 - 2021

YEAR=2021

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/medicine/articles/10.3389/fmed.2021.704409

DOI=10.3389/fmed.2021.704409

ISSN=2296-858X

ABSTRACT=Obesity is a chronic disease, with a rapidly increasing prevalence worldwide.  Body mass index (BMI) provides the most useful population-level measure of overweight and obesity. For adults, overweight is defined as a BMI (Kg/m2.) ≥ 25, and obesity as a BMI ≥30, for non-Asians and ≥  27.5 for Asians. Abdominal obesity can be defined as a waist circumference equal to or higher than 102 cm for men and ≥ 88 cm for women. The definition of children and adolescents BMI changes with age and sex. Obesity may be exogenous or endogenous obesity, the latter is predominantly manifested during childhood, is caused by various genetic, syndromic, and endocrine causes. Presently, overweight and obesity are linked to more deaths worldwide than underweight. Functionally, the total kidney GFR is determined by the collective sum of nephrons and the GFR within each nephron (single nephron GFR [SNGFR]). In clinical practice, GFR is more frequently estimated by GFR estimating equations based upon the plasma levels of creatinine, cystatin C, or both. The measured value of plasma creatinine is strongly influenced by non -GFR factors, by its tubular and gastrointestinal secretion, and by the pitfalls associated with the lack of standardization of creatinine’s laboratory assay rendering it a suboptimal GFR biomarker. Unlike creatinine, cystatin C plasma levels are mainly determined by GFR Obesity may affect the kidney, via the development of systemic arterial hypertension and/or diabetes mellitus, or directly, by adipose tissue hypertrophy and its ectopic accumulation in the kidney obesity-related glomerulopathy.. As a clinical condition associated with altered body composition creatinine may not be the ideal biomarker for GFR measurement in obese individuals