Are you concerned how lifestyle factors such as being overweight or drinking too much alcohol could be affecting your kidney function? Perhaps you’re at higher risk of kidney disease due to a condition like diabetes or high blood pressure. Or maybe you just want to be more proactive about your kidney health by spotting any potential problems early. Our kidney function blood test checks how well your kidneys are working and may provide insights that can prompt you make positive lifestyle changes. Our Kidney Blood Test can tell you how well your kidneys are functioning. If your kidneys aren’t working effectively, levels of waste products and toxins can build up in your blood. This test measures the levels of two waste products — creatinine and urea. If your levels are higher than expected, this could indicate a problem with your kidneys. Your test results also include a calculation of your estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR). This is based on your creatinine level alongside your age, sex, and body size. Your eGFR shows you how well your kidneys are filtering waste products from your blood. It can indicate if you’re likely to have kidney disease, and if so, its estimated stage. Kidney disease is normally caused by other conditions that put strain on your kidneys. Often, it’s the result of a combination of different problems. One of the main causes of kidney disease is diabetes, where too much glucose in the blood damages the tiny filters in the kidneys. Other common causes include high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and glomerulonephritis, which causes inflammation of the filters within the kidneys. Lifestyle factors such as smoking, being overweight, and drinking too much alcohol can make you more prone to getting kidney disease. And certain drugs such as anti-inflammatories may also be harmful to your kidneys, if taken regularly over a long period of time. Kidney disease is a common condition, and your risk increases as you get older. It’s also more common in people who are black or of South Asian descent. High-protein diets, dehydration, and heavy exercise may cause abnormally high urea and creatinine levels. Also, many drugs interfere with renal function and may affect your result. If one kidney is damaged, this may not show up in your results if the other kidney is working normally. And as eGFR is an estimation of kidney function, a single measurement can be unreliable, especially if kidney function is unstable.