Why Is a Basic Metabolic Panel Important?
More Programs and Publications Featuring Dr. Kyle Riding
In this program:
A basic metabolic panel is another laboratory blood test used by healthcare providers. Watch as medical laboratory scientist Dr. Kyle Riding explains the various functions that can be analyzed in an BMP test and potential medical conditions that can be detected via BMP.
Transcript
Interviewer:
Another test frequently used is the BMP, also known as the basic metabolic panel. What is it? And why is this just important?
Dr. Kyle Riding:
The basic metabolic panel is essentially a complete blood count for the chemicals in your blood, it's kind of the easiest way to think about it. If the CBC is looking at cells, the BMP is looking at chemicals, and the main purpose of a basic metabolic panel...it's told to you in the name. It's looking at your basic metabolic processes in your body to determine if there are any disturbances that need to be further investigated. So similar to a complete blood count, it is a wonderful screening test, not always diagnostic, but certainly could be, and different issues that can be detected by the basic metabolic panel could include electrolyte abnormalities, blood sugar irregularities, kidney dysfunction, and alterations to your body's ability to buffer out acids and bases, so there's a wide host of different issues that the basic metabolic panel can detect.
Interviewer:
Thank you. Now, let's talk about the anatomy of a BMP. Can you help us decode it and tell us what's included in the panel?
Dr. Kyle Riding:
Absolutely. So in terms of what's in a BMP, there's three major categories that I would call our attention to, the first major category are your electrolytes that are found in the basic metabolic panel, there are five electrolytes in a basic metabolic panel. Sodium, potassium, chloride, and then this one that has a couple of different names because you know, we never like simplicity in medicine, sometimes it's called the total carbon dioxide, and sometimes it's called the bicarbonate, and those two terms are actually synonyms for each other. So you can hear it referred to as total carbon dioxide or you could hear it referred to as bicarbonate and just know those are the same exact thing. The second kind of component of the BMP is the blood sugar, the glucose, and that's telling us how well our body is metabolizing that pivotal and central substance that's important for our metabolism that keeps our cells going and gets energy into our body. And the final and third component of the basic metabolic panel is the BUN and creatinine, which BUN stands for blood urea nitrogen, and creatinine, these are both waste products that your body makes, so you want to get rid of them, and the way you get rid of them is your kidneys, and if your kidneys aren't working, the levels of that blood, urea, nitrogen and creatinine will change in your blood, and the BMP can detect that.
Interviewer:
Very insightful. Thank you for that, Dr. Riding. Can you help us understand the role of the electrolytes? In other words, what is really being evaluated here?
Dr. Kyle Riding:
Absolutely. So in terms of looking at electrolytes, we're looking at a host of different issues, the most important when looking at the electrolytes is hydration status, and I know we can talk about hemoglobin and hydration status, but really, if we want to get into a deep dive of how well a patient is hydrated, you can look at their sodium values as sodium is kind of like a groupie to water, if you were to use band nomenclature, it's like a big groupie for water. Wherever water goes, sodium tries to follow. So if we don't have enough water, that's going to fluctuate our sodium values, and if we have too much water that's going to fluctuate our sodium values as well. The next electrolyte is potassium, and potassium is going to be really important if we have a patient who's having neuro-muscular excitability, so they're getting twitches or they're getting cramps, we may actually use the potassium balance to see if that's the cause. It's important to remember your heart is a muscle. So if it's having any issues, it's beating too fast, it's beating too slow, the potassium could give insight into why. The potassium actually also can give us a sense of how your acid base balance in your blood is going because it actually plays a role in buffering your blood. The next one by far is a major buffer in your body, and so because of that bicarbonate also tells us about acid base balance within the body, and there's one final electrolyte that I didn't mention earlier, which is calcium, and calcium is part of this basic metabolic panel, and when people think of calcium, we always think of bone strength, which calcium plays an important part in, but it's important to keep in mind that calcium is also a major contributor to different biological reactions in your body, and when it's imbalanced, we can see imbalances in those reactions, and some of those reactions, again, similar to potassium, include heart contractility and the ability of the heart to beat correctly.
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