Creatinuria in Children

It has been known for some years that creatine is constantly found in the urine of young children although none appears in normal adult urine, or at any rate in that of male adults.As yet nothing appears to be known concerning the cause of this difference.Rose [1911], who examined specimens from a number of children and young people, found that creatine was usually present until the age of puberty.His observations were not made on 24-hour specimens of urine, and in many cases the diet contained meat.Folin and Denis [1912, 1] also made observations on a number of normal healthy children, and found that the creatine formed a fairly large fraction of the "total creatinine" excreted, even in the case of vegetarians.It was also shown that the ingestion of meat was followed by a rapid rise in the creatine output.They made a few observations on morning, afternoon and night samples, but these did not lead them to any conclusions concerning the relative amounts of creatine excreted during different parts of the day.Krause [1913] has also made observations on the creatine excretion of children, and concludes that creatine occurs in the urine of normal boys up to about six years of age, and for a longer time in the case of girls.To determine the fate of ingested creatine he gave two boys 03 g. of creatine in the morning.One, aged eight, who was previously excreting no creatine, excreted 43 % of that given, and the other, aged five, excreted at least 22 % of that given (one sample of urine being lost).Approximately the same amount was given to two girls the last thing at night; one, aged eleven, previously excreting no creatine, excreted during the next 24 hours 31 % of that given, and the other, aged six, excreted 56 %.In no case was the ingestion of the creatine followed by any apparent increase in the excretion of creatinine.