Electrolyte Tests Health Article

Precautions

Electrolyte tests are performed from routine blood tests. The techniques are simple, automated, and fairly uniform throughout the United States. During the preparation of blood plasma or serum, health workers must take care not to break the red blood cells, especially when testing for serum potassium. Because the concentration of potassium within red blood cells is much higher than in the surrounding plasma or serum, broken cells would cause falsely elevated potassium levels.

Description

Electrolyte tests are typically conducted on blood plasma or serum, urine, and diarrheal fluids. Electrolytes can be classified in at least five different ways. One way is that some electrolytes tend to exist mostly inside cells, or are intracellular, while others tend to be outside cells, or are extracellular. Potassium, phosphate, and magnesium occur at much greater levels inside the cell than outside, while sodium and chloride occur at much greater levels extracellularly. A second classification distinguishes those electrolytes that participate directly in the transmission of nerve impulses and those that do not. Sodium, potassium, and calcium are the important electrolytes involved in nerve impulses, and disorders affecting them are most closely associated with neurological disorders. A third classification focuses on electrolytes that are able to form a tight union, or complex, with one another. Calcium and phosphate have the greatest tendency to form complexes with each other. Disorders that cause an increase in either plasma calcium or phosphate can result in the deposit of calcium-phosphate crystals in the soft tissues of the body. A fourth classification concerns those electrolytes that influence the acidity or alkalinity of the bloodstream, also known as the pH. The pH of the bloodstream is normally in the range of 7.35–7.45. A decrease below this range is called acidosis, while a pH above this range is called alkalosis. The electrolytes most closely associated with the pH of the bloodstream are bicarbonate, chloride, and phosphate.