EXCRETION OF CREATINE AND CREATININE BY CHILDREN

Abstract

IT APPEARS to be widely accepted that the urinary excretion of creatine is characteristic of childhood. Urinary creatine in children was first reported, in 1907, by Amberg and Morrill¹and later confirmed by Sedgwick,²van Hoogenhuyze,³Rose,⁴Folin and Denis⁵and others reporting before 1912. Because this substance so regularly appears in the urine of children, it is generally considered a normal metabolite, and such excretion is usually referred to as "physiological creatinuria." Although there have subsequently been many scattered reports of its presence in urine from healthy children, the total number of determinations reported in the literature is not very impressive. Faulty or inadequately described methods of analysis have, in addition, added confusion as to its quantitative variation. It was thought that a knowledge of creatine excretion at various ages might provide some clue as to the mechanisms controlling its excretion. Further, it seemed