Dr Anuja Mahajan discusses how serum albumin test can help diagnose your kidney and liver health.
Albumin is one of the several proteins that naturally occur in the liver. Proteins are important for the body to fight against diseases and infections. Albumin makes up to 50 per cent of the proteins in the blood plasma. It helps in maintaining fluid in the blood vessel and preventing leakage of the fluid into the tissues. Albumin protein helps transport nutrients and hormones to various parts of the body. About 9-12 gm of
albumin is synthesised by the liver every day from the food containing proteins. Low serum albumin levels indicate liver damage or kidney diseases.
Importance of the test
Serum albumin levels may decrease in malnutrition either due to nutritional deficiency or due to malabsorption (like in celiac disease or pancreatitis, protein-losing enteropathies like inflammation of the digestive tract such as in crohn’s disease)
or due to liver disease (hepatitis, cirrhosis or hepatocellular necrosis) or kidney disease (nephritic or nephrotic syndrome). Also the levels may decrease following a surgery or if there is an open wound or a burn injury.
Serum albumin levels increase in case of dehydration or when there is a high protein diet intake. Serum albumin test measures the amount of albumin in the blood. It can either be recommended as a part of the regular screening process to check liver and kidney health or if the physician suspects liver or kidney disease.
Serum albumin test explained
Serum albumin test is generally recommended to check for the liver and kidney health of a person. The test is recommended as a part of complication screening procedure in people with:
- Swelling around the eyes, legs and
- Liver disease with symptoms of jaundice (yellowing of skin colour, eyes), abdominal pain, unexplained weight loss and fatigue.
- Decreased urine output and dark urine
Performing the test
Serum albumin test can be done at any time of the day. If a person is on insulin, growth hormones and anabolic steroids then the test results may get affected.
Check with your physician before doing the
test. To perform the test, a small amount of blood is drawn from a vein in the upper arm (as for any other routine blood tests). The person is asked to make a fist and a tourniquet is tied above the vein to make it prominent. After the site is cleaned with sterile swabs, a needle attached to a test tube or vial is inserted and the required blood is drawn.
This test is relatively risk free. As for any routine blood tests, the common side effects are mild pain at the site of blood drawn, giddiness and small bruise.
Interpreting the results
Normal range: The normal range of serum
albumin may vary between different laboratories. Most of the laboratories mention 3.4-5.4 mg/dL as the normal range of serum albumin.
Low serum albumin levels indicate protein loss, increased protein breakdown and increased blood plasma volume. Low serum albumin levels can be caused by liver disease, malnutrition, kidney disease, auto immune diseases, inflammation in the digestive tract, Diabetes, heart failure, increased thyroid levels and Hodgkin’s lymphoma (cancer in the lymph nodes.). High serum albumin levels indicate dehydration or high protein intake.
A physician may prescribe serum albumin test along with other tests to diagnose the root cause of low serum albumin levels.
(*Note: The normal range may slightly vary between different labs)
Advantages
The test is simple, risk-free and can be done at any time of the day. Your physician may recommend you to do it along with other tests to study the health of your liver and kidney. The test also helps to determine the low or high absorption of protein in the body.
Dr Anuja Mahajan is consultant Pathologist.
