(Boston)—Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is common, largely silent, and serious. Most people who have the condition do not realize they have it, while it sharply raises the risk of heart attacks, strokes, kidney failure and early death. Over the past decade, the share of American adults living with CKD has remained consistent. Roughly one in seven U.S. adults — about 15% — had CKD in 2013, and approximately 1 in 7 still had it in 2023. What has changed is the type of kidney disease.
In a new study, researchers have found that the proportion of Americans with kidney disease driven by diabetes rose from 4.7% to 5.7% (about a 30% relative increase), while kidney disease not linked to diabetes held steady.
"Our study reveals a concerning trend in the United States, where CKD is increasingly associated with diabetes. This is the first CKD study to utilize the recently released survey data spanning a decade, encompassing the period during which the first therapies specifically approved to protect the kidneys, namely SGLT2 inhibitors and finerenone (a nonsteroidal mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist (MRA) that mitigates the risk of kidney failure), were introduced into the market. Remarkably, despite these advancements, overall CKD rates have remained stagnant. This finding underscores the urgent need for further research and intervention to address the escalating burden of CKD in the context of diabetes," says
corresponding author Ashish Verma, MBBS, assistant professor of medicine at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine.
