Discounting ‘race’ in kidney testing
Controversial UK medical guidance that included a person’s ethnicity in assessing kidney function has recently been scrapped. How well the kidneys are performing in filtering and excreting the body’s waste is related to the glomerular filtration rate (GFR).
This is complicated to measure directly, so routine screening blood tests report an estimated GFR (eGFR). This is based on a single blood measurement of a waste product called creatinine. The way this creatinine level correlates with the GFR varies with age, sex and other factors. So a formula is applied to try to take all that into account.
Until recently, that formula had included an additional correction factor if the patient was African or Afro-Caribbean. However, this has been shown to cause an overestimation of real GFR in these people by about 25%. Experts at Kings College Hospital in London expressed concern that this may result in failure to diagnose kidney disease or—if disease is detected—may underestimate its severity.
“Ethnicity and race are social constructs and do not match genetic categories,” says Paul Cockwell, president of the UK Kidney Association. Instead of drawing conclusions based on social constructs like ‘race’, he said it was “more appropriate to take into account individual risk factors”.
While the post-Fall accumulation of mutations means that some groups are more (or less) prone to certain illnesses than others, these findings sit well with Scripture. Despite our minor differences, we are all one human race, going back to Adam and Eve.
- Liverpool, L., Kidney test adjustment based on ethnicity cut from UK medical guidance, newscientist.com, 24 Aug 2021.
- UK Kidney Association, About eGFR, ukkidney.org, accessed 5 Jan 2022.
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