The red blood cell (RBC) membrane of patients suffering from chronic renal failure (CRF) are exposed to increased activity of free radicals by uremic toxins and hemodialysis which leads to decrease in RBC stability and a lower resistance to hemodialysis. Our study was to see the effect of different concentrations of creatinine and uric acid on RBC membrane obtained from healthy individuals. RBC’s from 5 healthy individuals were incubated with different concentrations of uric acid and creatinine and the lipid peroxidation levels in RBC membrane was estimated after 0, 5, 10, 15 and 30 minutes. One-way ANOVA showed that with increase in duration of incubation with uric acid, there was significant rise in lipid peroxidation (P=0.000) when compared within and between groups for 5, 15 and 30 min (P=0.000). There was an inconsistent rise and fall with increase in duration of incubation with creatinine. In our study, we observed that there was a rise in RBC membrane lipid peroxidation with increase in duration of exposure and increase in concentration for uric acid and creatinine. The rise in presence of uric acid was more consistent than for creatinine. Uric acid being one of the early markers of renal function impairment needs to be monitored closely and managed aggressively in order to decrease the level of free radical exposure in chronic renal failure patients
