The short answer
Creatinine is a waste product from your muscles that your kidneys filter out, so it rises when they filter less. Labcorp’s range is 0.57 to 1.00 mg/dL for women and 0.76 to 1.27 for men.2
- A good result
- Inside your lab’s range, with a normal eGFR on the same report. The eGFR adjusts for your age and sex, which creatinine alone can’t.1,2
- If yours is high
- Muscle, a meat meal, creatine supplements and some medicines can all raise it without harming your kidneys. A repeat test and cystatin C tell them apart.1
- Should you test?
- It’s on every metabolic panel. It matters most if you have high blood pressure, diabetes or heart disease, or take medicines that affect the kidneys.1
Check your result
Type the number from your report. It stays on this page.
- Below the range Under 0.57
- In range 0.57 to 1.00
- Above the range 1.01 to 1.32
- High 1.33 to 2.35
- Very high 2.36 or more
- Below the range Under 0.76
- In range 0.76 to 1.27
- Above the range 1.28 to 1.68
- High 1.69 to 2.99
- Very high 3.00 or more
Enter your result to see what it means and what to do next.
Got a result from another lab? Ask Picardo about it. The app explains your results, and a physician can follow up.
The in-range band is Labcorp’s adult range.2 Above it, the lines mark where the CKD-EPI 2021 equation gives an eGFR under 60, then under 30, even at age 18. Older adults cross each line at lower values.3 The bar isn’t to scale.
Below the lab’s range
Low creatinine usually means less muscle rather than a kidney problem.2 It can make your eGFR read higher than your kidneys really filter.1
Not a worry on its own.
Within the lab’s range
Your creatinine is in Labcorp’s adult range.2 Read it with the eGFR on the same report, though: creatinine rises slowly as kidney function falls, so in older adults a result inside the range can still mean an eGFR under 60.2,3
Nothing to worry about if the eGFR beside it is 60 or more.
- 1 Check the eGFR on your report. If it’s 60 or more, that isn’t kidney disease on its own.1
- 2 If you have high blood pressure or diabetes, add a urine albumin test. It finds kidney damage that creatinine misses.1
Above the range: check your eGFR
Your age and sex decide what this means. At 1.3 mg/dL, a man has an eGFR of about 76 at age 30 and about 59 at 70; a woman has about 57 at 30 and 44 at 70.3 Muscle, a meat meal, creatine supplements and some medicines can also raise creatinine without kidney disease.1
Not urgent, unless it rose quickly. Check your eGFR and recheck.
- 1 Look at your eGFR. If it’s under 60, it needs a repeat test. If it’s 60 or more, this isn’t kidney disease on its own.1
- 2 Before a retest, drink normally and skip meat for 12 hours, and tell your clinician if you take creatine.1,5
- 3 Add a urine albumin test, and ask about cystatin C, measured on the same sample as creatinine for the most accurate eGFR.1
- 4 A rise of 0.3 mg/dL or more within 2 days can be a sudden kidney injury, which needs prompt care.4
High enough to mean an eGFR under 60
At this level, the standard equation gives an eGFR under 60 at any adult age, and at older ages it may already be under 30.3 If that lasts three months or more, it’s chronic kidney disease, unless a non-kidney cause such as muscle or creatine explains it.1
Worth seeing a clinician in the next few weeks. Sooner if it rose quickly or your eGFR is under 30.
- 1 Repeat the test with cystatin C and a urine albumin test.1
- 2 Ask a clinician about blood pressure, medicines that protect your kidneys and, if you’re 50 or older, a statin. Have your other medicines reviewed too.1
- 3 A rise of 0.3 mg/dL or more within 2 days, or to 1.5 times your usual level within a week, can be a sudden kidney injury.4
High enough to mean an eGFR under 30
At this level, the standard equation gives an eGFR under 30 at any adult age, which is severely reduced kidney function.1,3 KDIGO advises care from a kidney specialist below 30.1
If this is new or you feel unwell, contact a clinician today. Otherwise, within days.
- 1 If you didn’t know about a kidney problem, get seen promptly. It may be a sudden kidney injury.4
- 2 If you already see a kidney specialist, share the result with them.
What is a normal creatinine level?
Labcorp’s adult range is 0.57 to 1.00 mg/dL for women and 0.76 to 1.27 for men.2 Creatinine is easier to read as an eGFR, which adjusts for age and sex, so the higher bands below say what it means for your eGFR:3
Below the lab’s range
Low creatinine usually means less muscle rather than a kidney problem.2 It can make your eGFR read higher than your kidneys really filter.1
Not a worry on its own.
Within the lab’s range
Your creatinine is in Labcorp’s adult range.2 Read it with the eGFR on the same report, though: creatinine rises slowly as kidney function falls, so in older adults a result inside the range can still mean an eGFR under 60.2,3
Nothing to worry about if the eGFR beside it is 60 or more.
Above the range: check your eGFR
Your age and sex decide what this means. At 1.3 mg/dL, a man has an eGFR of about 76 at age 30 and about 59 at 70; a woman has about 57 at 30 and 44 at 70.3 Muscle, a meat meal, creatine supplements and some medicines can also raise creatinine without kidney disease.1
Not urgent, unless it rose quickly. Check your eGFR and recheck.
- 1 Look at your eGFR. If it’s under 60, it needs a repeat test. If it’s 60 or more, this isn’t kidney disease on its own.1
- 2 Before a retest, drink normally and skip meat for 12 hours, and tell your clinician if you take creatine.1,5
- 3 Add a urine albumin test, and ask about cystatin C, measured on the same sample as creatinine for the most accurate eGFR.1
- 4 A rise of 0.3 mg/dL or more within 2 days can be a sudden kidney injury, which needs prompt care.4
High enough to mean an eGFR under 60
At this level, the standard equation gives an eGFR under 60 at any adult age, and at older ages it may already be under 30.3 If that lasts three months or more, it’s chronic kidney disease, unless a non-kidney cause such as muscle or creatine explains it.1
Worth seeing a clinician in the next few weeks. Sooner if it rose quickly or your eGFR is under 30.
- 1 Repeat the test with cystatin C and a urine albumin test.1
- 2 Ask a clinician about blood pressure, medicines that protect your kidneys and, if you’re 50 or older, a statin. Have your other medicines reviewed too.1
- 3 A rise of 0.3 mg/dL or more within 2 days, or to 1.5 times your usual level within a week, can be a sudden kidney injury.4
High enough to mean an eGFR under 30
At this level, the standard equation gives an eGFR under 30 at any adult age, which is severely reduced kidney function.1,3 KDIGO advises care from a kidney specialist below 30.1
If this is new or you feel unwell, contact a clinician today. Otherwise, within days.
- 1 If you didn’t know about a kidney problem, get seen promptly. It may be a sudden kidney injury.4
- 2 If you already see a kidney specialist, share the result with them.
What is creatinine?
Think of creatinine as exhaust from your muscles. Your muscles give off a steady amount, and your kidneys clear it. If the clearing slows, it builds up.
Your muscles make creatinine at a fairly steady rate, and healthy kidneys filter it out of your blood. When they filter less, the level rises.1
Because it depends on how much muscle you have, the same number means different things for different people. Labs feed it into an equation with your age and sex to give your eGFR, the number that says how well your kidneys filter.1,3 Creatinine itself only rises above the range once kidney function has fallen a long way.2
What raises creatinine besides kidney disease?
Creatinine reflects your muscle and diet as well as your kidneys, so these can raise it too:1,2
- More muscle, a high-protein diet or creatine supplements
- A cooked meat or fish meal in the 12 hours before your test
- Dehydration, which cuts blood flow to the kidneys
- Some medicines that block how your kidneys clear creatinine
- Cephalosporin antibiotics taken in the 4 hours before your blood draw, which interfere with the test
Cystatin C, a second kidney marker, can tell these apart from real kidney disease, because muscle and diet barely affect it.1
How to lower creatinine
If your creatinine is high because of muscle, diet or supplements, your kidneys don’t need fixing. If it’s high because your kidneys filter less, the aim is to protect them.
- Skipping meat before the test
A cooked meat meal can raise creatinine by about 0.23 mg/dL for hours. KDIGO suggests waiting at least 12 hours.1
- How much it helps
- Some
- How sure we are
- Fairly sure
- Pausing creatine supplements
Creatine raises creatinine by about 0.14 mg/dL on average, without lowering kidney function measured directly in trials.5
- How much it helps
- A little
- How sure we are
- Fairly sure
- Treating kidney disease
If your kidneys are the cause, an SGLT2 inhibitor, an ACE inhibitor or ARB and lower blood pressure slow the rise over years. They can nudge creatinine up a little at first, which is expected.1
- How much it helps
- A little
- How sure we are
- Very sure
Who should get a creatinine test?
Creatinine comes on every metabolic panel, so most people get it with a routine checkup. It matters most if any of these apply to you:1
- You have high blood pressure, diabetes or heart disease.
- A relative has kidney failure, or you’ve had a kidney injury or repeated kidney stones.
- You take medicines that are cleared by the kidneys or can strain them.
If any of these apply, KDIGO advises testing urine albumin as well as eGFR.1
How to get a creatinine test, and what it costs
It comes from the comprehensive metabolic panel, which costs $4.00 through Picardo. The Heart Health panel adds 16 more tests from the same visit for $150.90.
Heart Health panel
Creatinine is one part of a kidney check. The panel adds the urine albumin test, which finds damage creatinine misses, and heart tests such as ApoB and Lp(a), because kidney disease raises heart risk. See what’s in it
Comprehensive metabolic panel
The test this number comes from.
- Results in 2 to 3 days, in the app
- Physician follow-up if you want one
- Free Labcorp draw, or $75 at home
- No other fees. HSA and FSA eligible.
It’s also part of the Base Core Annual – Men, Base Core Annual – Women, Brain Health Screening, Pregnancy, Postpartum, Fertility, Thyroid & Autoimmunity and Celiac / GI panels, if you want a wider checkup.
Already have a result? Ask Picardo about itQuestions people ask
Is a creatinine of 1.3 high?
It’s just above Labcorp’s range for men, which tops out at 1.27 mg/dL, and well above the women’s range of 0.57 to 1.00.2 What it means depends on your age and sex. For a man, 1.3 gives an eGFR of about 76 at age 30 and about 59 at 70. For a woman, it’s about 57 at 30 and 44 at 70.3
Does creatine raise creatinine?
Yes. In a 2026 review of 26 trials, creatine supplements raised blood creatinine by about 0.14 mg/dL on average and lowered creatinine-based GFR estimates by about 11 points, while kidney function measured directly didn’t fall.5 If you take it, tell your clinician, or ask for cystatin C.1
My creatinine went up after starting a blood pressure pill. Should I stop it?
Not on your own. ACE inhibitors and ARBs often nudge creatinine up when you start them. KDIGO advises continuing unless it rises by more than 30% within 4 weeks.1
What creatinine level is dangerous?
It depends on your muscle, age and sex, which is why labs convert it to an eGFR. From about 2.4 mg/dL for women or 3.0 for men, eGFR is under 30 at any adult age.3 A fast rise matters too. A rise of 0.3 mg/dL or more within 2 days counts as a sudden kidney injury.4
Does dehydration raise creatinine?
It can. Dehydration cuts blood flow to your kidneys, so they clear less creatinine.2 If you were short of fluids before the test, drink normally and retest.
Often checked alongside
Test details
- Labcorp test
- Metabolic Panel (14), Comprehensive, 322000
- LOINC
- 2160-0
- Sample
- Blood
- Fasting
- 12 hours for the metabolic panel. It also keeps a meat meal from raising your creatinine.1
- Typical lab range
- 0.57 to 1.00 mg/dL (women); 0.76 to 1.27 mg/dL (men)2
- Units
- mg/dL in the US. For µmol/L, multiply by 88.4.
Sources
- 1 Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) CKD Work Group. KDIGO 2024 clinical practice guideline for the evaluation and management of chronic kidney disease. Kidney Int. 2024;105(4S):S117–S314. doi.org/10.1016/j.kint.2023.10.018
- 2 Labcorp. Creatinine, test 001370. Labcorp test menu. Accessed October 28, 2026. www.labcorp.com/tests/001370/creatinine
- 3 Inker LA, Eneanya ND, Coresh J, et al. New creatinine- and cystatin C–based equations to estimate GFR without race. N Engl J Med. 2021;385(19):1737–1749. doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2102953
- 4 Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) Acute Kidney Injury Work Group. KDIGO clinical practice guideline for acute kidney injury. Kidney Int Suppl. 2012;2(1):1–138. kdigo.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/KDIGO-2012-AKI-Guideline-English.pdf
- 5 de Souza Almeida A, da Silva LOD, Takahasi BNA, et al. Impact of creatine supplementation on kidney health: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Int Urol Nephrol. Published online July 27, 2026. doi.org/10.1007/s11255-026-05287-x
Updated 28 Oct 2026.
This is general health information, not medical advice: talk to your clinician about your results and before changing any treatment.