Kidney health depends on RPTs, but what are RPTs?
The most delicate parts of your pet’s kidneys are the Renal Proximal Tubules (RPTs). The RPT’s job of cleaning blood means it works to sort through smaller molecules in the blood, reabsorbing molecules that your pet needs while removing waste products from the body.
For all types of mammals, RPTs reclaim vital nutrients such as sodium, chloride, calcium, phosphate, glucose, amino acids, bicarbonate, citrate, triglycerides, and water. RPTs remove waste products like urea, directing it into the urine for elimination. RPTs also regulate the blood’s oxygen content by sensing oxygen saturation levels. When levels are low, they send out requests to circulating red blood cells to fix the low oxygen levels.
An RPT’s function can be viewed not only as a filter but also as a barrier between blood and waste products. As RPTs separate blood and waste, they create both concentration and electrical gradients required for essential kidney function. This is where our science comes in. Our team has studied RPTs to determine what impact ION* Gut Support For Pets has on these important biological barriers.
How does ION* improve pet health?
In “Renal Proximal Tubule Centric View of Health and Homeostasis in Mammals”, we measured the difficulty of an electron to cross this barrier using a method called Trans-Epithelial Electrical Resistance (TEER). The greater the TEER across the RPTs, the more capable they are for filtering waste. The test results indicated a dramatic and function-improving increase in the TEER for the RPTs for all six mammal species when ION* Gut Support For Pets was applied.
Impact of ION* on the Barrier Integrity Across Renal Proximal Tubules for Multiple Species
The strength of epithelial-type barriers, such as RPTs, is now considered a major component of a long health span and the ability of ION* Gut Support For Pets to increase TEER in this important barrier system may be a crucial component supporting your cat or dog’s kidney health, whole body homeostasis, and overall health1.
But ION* Gut Support For Pets doesn’t stop at kidney support. By strengthening tight junction integrity (the seals between cells) at the epithelial barrier in the gut as well, this soil-derived supplement helps to balance microbiome health the natural way. With a balanced microbiome and improved kidney function, your cats and dogs are able to thrive the way they were meant to.
Happy Microbiome!
Matthew Bednar, PhD
Bringing science out of the lab and into your life.
References:
- López-Otín C, Kroemer G. Hallmarks of Health. Cell. 2021 Jan 7;184(1):33-63. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2020.11.034. Epub 2020 Dec 18. PMID: 33340459.
