Blood urea nitrogen
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Search complete. 40 mentions across 15 episodes found for "Blood urea nitrogen".
Sep 19, 2026
Ken BerryHOST
glucose was 91.
Ken BerryHOST
BUN creatinine, normal.
Ken BerryHOST
Calcium, everything else is normal.
Ken BerryHOST
And then it repeats again.
Hope BlackHOST
But when looking at hydration, We want to look for patterns to give us some ideas about your hydration status.
Hope BlackHOST
So one thing we can look at is your bun and creatinine or BUN.
Hope BlackHOST
BUN stands for blood urea nitrogen.
Hope BlackHOST
And when circulating blood volume drops, your kidneys may reabsorb more urea, which can cause the BUN or bun to rise disproportionately compared to the creatinine.
Hope BlackHOST
So traditionally, a bun to creatinine ratio of around 20 to 1 or greater can be a clue suggesting that what's called like a pre-renal state, which can occur with volume depletion.
Hope BlackHOST
And we're kind of getting into the weeds here, but this is important.
Hope BlackHOST
A high bun to creatinine ratio does not automatically, though, mean that you're dehydrated.
Hope BlackHOST
So if your bun is affected by protein, I should say your bun or BUN is affected by your protein intake.
Jason FungHOST
So the way you measure it, is you measure creatine and you measure urea nitrogen.
Jason FungHOST
So that's the BUN and the creatinine in your blood.
Jason FungHOST
And the reason you use those markers is because, remember, the kidneys are passing out.
Jason FungHOST
They're getting rid of the urea nitrogen and they're getting rid of the creatinine.
Jason FungHOST
we tell our dialysis patients, right? The ones with almost no kidney function at all to eat more protein, right? That's what the renal dieticians are telling people.
Jason FungHOST
You need to eat more protein because you need to maintain your muscles.
Jason FungHOST
That's what's important, not this sort of artificial changing of your blood level, BUN and creatinine, so that it looks like you have better kidney function, right? If you had zero muscle mass, like you see in the ICU sometimes, it looks like your kidney function is good, but it's not.
Jason FungHOST
It's just as bad as it was.
speaker_0NARRATOR
Basic Metabolic Panel, BMP a blood test measuring glucose, calcium, and electrolytes to assess metabolic function.
speaker_0NARRATOR
The basic metabolic panel, BMP, includes tests for sodium, potassium, chloride, bicarbonate, glucose, BUN, and creatinine.
speaker_0NARRATOR
60.
speaker_0NARRATOR
Comprehensive Metabolic Panel An expanded metabolic panel including liver function tests in addition to BMP components.
Robert CywesGUEST
So we've got people who are insulin resistant, who have a certain amount of soft plaque, we expect that, um, on CAC score CTA, but we've got another subset of people that are supposed to be the healthiest they can possibly be, who are also forming soft plaque.
Robert CywesGUEST
How is that possible? And in my practice, I manage a large number of those patients, and they all, when they start getting soft plaque on a carnivore diet, all have very low insulin, low C-peptide, rising A1C, rising tri- triglycerides, rising BUN.
Robert CywesGUEST
They cannot clear the gluconeogenic sugar, the sugar that their liver is making, because they don't have enough insulin to get into their muscles.
Robert CywesGUEST
It's hanging around in the bloodstream causing vascular inflammation.
Robert CywesGUEST
But here-- the last thing I'll tell you is before I did that, the failed experiment for me was I said, "Okay, Tim Noakes," who was my physiology professor, "told me that rising blood sugar triggers insulin." And we know that gluconeogenesis rises blood sugar.
Robert CywesGUEST
So let's put these people on a lean protein diet, a, a protein-spared modified fasting, the Maria Emmerich high protein diet.
Robert CywesGUEST
And they all produced massive amounts of sugar from their protein with gluconeogenesis, high BUN, which is a measure of that breakdown.
Robert CywesGUEST
They were miserably hungry because they couldn't feed their cells Because the sugar was in their bloodstream, it wasn't getting to their cells.
Sanjay AryaHOST
Right.
Sanjay AryaHOST
For instance, we are trained to check lab results, specifically looking at BUN and creatinine levels.
Sanjay AryaHOST
If it is not my job to diagnose a patient’s kidney disease, why am I acting like a nephrology detective looking at these specific blood values?
speaker_1HOST
Well, because those values dictate whether your intervention will cause harm.
speaker_1HOST
BUN, which stands for blood urea, nitrogen, and creatinine, are primary indicators of renal function.
Sanjay AryaHOST
Okay.
speaker_1HOST
When a patient is given intravenous contrast media for a CT scan, that high-density fluid has to be filtered out of their bloodstream, and the kidneys are the organs responsible for that heavy lifting.
Sanjay AryaHOST
Right, they have to process all of it.
JayHOST
Right.
Judy MorganGUEST
You have to see a urinalysis, and you have to look at BUN, and you have to look at creatinine, and you have to look at phosphorus, and you have to look at the CBC, and you have to look at the SDMA.
Judy MorganGUEST
Like, you can't say, "Oh look, his creatinine was 1.8. That's out of the normal." And then you look at everything else and you go, "And it's perfectly normal and his ki- his urine is concentrated out the wazoo.
Judy MorganGUEST
Where, where's the kidney failure? Wait, I, I, I lost it." So, you know, a lot of time...
Judy MorganGUEST
But, um, kibble fed versus like raw fed or, you know, high meat diets, which, you know, whether it's gently cooked or raw, but a high meat diet like our cats should be eating, uh, frankly our dogs too.
Judy MorganGUEST
Um, there are differences that you're gonna see.
Judy MorganGUEST
The BUN is almost always higher.
Judy MorganGUEST
If you're feeding a high protein diet, you're gonna get a higher BUN, so then your vet says, "Oh, he's in kidney failure 'cause his BUN is 38." But that's normal for...
Octavian FlorescuGUEST
Um, and so we now give eight indications for liver and kidney.
Octavian FlorescuGUEST
So we give, uh, BUN, creatinine, eGFR for kidney disease and ALT, AST, alkaline phosphatase, T Billy, and GGT for your liver health.
Octavian FlorescuGUEST
And this is obviously valuable for a variety of different people.
Octavian FlorescuGUEST
So providers can now run more tests outpatient.
JoshGUEST
You don't need to look at your EGFR because that is estimated.
JoshGUEST
And that's going to be basically calculated off of what your BUN, your age, and your creatinine is.
JoshGUEST
It's also estimated.
JoshGUEST
Well, if your creatinine is not correct because you take creatine, then it's obviously going to be wrong.
JoshGUEST
Now, I don't have kidney failure.
JoshGUEST
My kidneys work fine.
JoshGUEST
My BUN is 15.
JoshGUEST
It's low.
JoJoHOST
And with sub-Q fluids daily and syringe feeding, renal hills mixed with water.
JoJoHOST
If you can get the inflammation down in the mouth, the BUN and the creatinine also drop.
JoJoHOST
Meaning you may do blood work and think it's from kidneys, but it's actually the mouth causing the spike.
JoJoHOST
My cat runs, fights, plays with other cats and hunts at night.
Angie KrauseHOST
And so cats that are in very end-stage kidney disease are not running around.
Angie KrauseHOST
And so I'm going to agree with this person's comment that ulcers not due to kidney disease are probably not an end-stage kidney disease problem.
JoJoHOST
And there's probably not a correlation with the ulcers and the BUN and the creatinine? No,
Angie KrauseHOST
other than I wonder if what's happened is if this cat had ulcers in their mouth, they probably weren't eating and drinking well.
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