In this video, we're going to be talking about glomerular filtration rate. Now glomerular filtration pressure, which we just talked about previously, directly impacts glomerular filtration rate. And glomerular filtration rate is just the amount of filtrate formed by both kidneys in one minute. And it's on average going to be approximately 125 milliliters per minute. Now, on average, what we see is that in healthy individuals, blood pressure and glomerular filtration rate are positively correlated. So generally, what's going on here is that systemic blood pressure is the strongest predictor of glomerular filtration pressure. And then glomerular filtration pressure is the strongest predictor of glomerular filtration rate. And so what we end up with is that if systemic blood pressure increases, typically in a healthy person, glomerular filtration rate will also increase. If systemic blood pressure decreases, glomerular filtration rate will also decrease. So those variables are always moving in the same directions. We have a beautiful positive correlation there. And again, this is on average in healthy individuals and that this is the pattern that we would expect to see. Now, glomerular filtration rate is highly regulated by the body. And that is because it has a very strong impact on blood volume, blood pressure, as well as just our general homeostasis and health.

So just to give you some examples of what can happen when glomerular filtration rate kind of gets out of whack. If we were to have chronically increased glomerular filtration rate, we would end up with an increased urine output. Because we're just making more filtrate, and more filtrate means more urine. Because of that increased urine output, we would have a decreased blood volume because water is leaving the body. Right? We have decreased blood volume which would lead to decreased blood pressure. That can lead to things like dehydration as well as electrolyte imbalances. We're going to be losing a lot more electrolytes, in all of that urine. Now on the flip side, if we were to have chronically decreased glomerular filtration, we're going to end up with a decreased urine output where it's not going to urinate as often. We're going to be retaining all of that water in our body which will lead to increased blood volume as well as increased blood pressure. And then, the adverse effects of that could be things like hypertension, edema, or swelling, as well as the retention of waste products and toxins within our body because they're obviously not getting excreted in urine, at the correct rate. So you can see why glomerular filtration rate really needs to be kind of held at a nice constant. And we're going to spend the next couple of videos talking about many of the ways that our body monitors and regulates glomerular filtration rate. So I'll see you there.