The Age‐Associated Decline in Glomerular Filtration in Healthy Normotensive Volunteers: Lack of Relationship to Cardiovascular Performance

Whether the well‐documented age‐associated decline in the glomerular filtration rate, manifest as a decline in creatinine clearance, is secondary to an age‐related change in cardiovascular performance is at present unknown. To answer this question, we measured arterial blood pressure, 24‐hour creatinine clearance, and cardiac output determined from gated cardiac blood pool scans in the sitting position in healthy normotensive men (n = 75) and women (n = 42) (ages 25 to 82 years), from the Baltimore Longitudinal Study on Aging. These subjects were selected for the absence of cardiovascular disease, renal disease, and confounding medications. By linear regression analysis, creatinine clearance, expressed in mL/min/m², declined cross‐sectionally with age (creatinine clearance = 90 – 0.33[age], r = .31, P < .001), whereas systolic blood pressure in mm Hg increased with age (systolic blood pressure = 111 + 0.27[age], r = .30, P < .001); cardiac output in L/min/m² did not vary with age (r = .03, P = .74). In stepwise multiple regression analysis with age, cardiac index, and systolic blood pressure as independent variables and creatinine clearance as the dependent variable, only age was a significant predictor of creatinine clearance. (F = 11.31, DF + 116, r = .30, P < .001). Thus, the age‐associated decline in creatinine clearance is not modulated by changes in cardiac index or systolic blood pressure in healthy normotensive subjects.