Ranks Among World’s Deadliest Conditions
TheDigger Intelligence Unit
A major international study shows that chronic kidney disease (CKD) now affects almost 800 million people worldwide, making it a leading cause of death.
CKD, once considered a silent problem, has become a global health crisis. It is closely linked to heart disease and disability and is much more common than experts once thought.
The analysis, published in The Lancet and shared at Kidney Week, found that CKD cases have more than doubled over the past 30 years, increasing from 378 million in 1990 to 788 million in 2023.
Researchers from NYU Langone Health, the University of Glasgow, and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington led the study as part of the Global Burden of Disease project.
The study found that CKD is now among the top 10 causes of death worldwide for the first time, with 1.5 million deaths in 2023.
When adjusted for age differences between countries, deaths were more than six per cent higher than in 1993.
“Our work shows chronic kidney disease is common, deadly, and worsening as a major public health issue,” said co-senior author Josef Coresh, MD, PhD, of NYU Langone.
CKD often goes unnoticed in its early stages and slowly reduces the kidneys’ ability to filter waste and fluid from the blood. People with mild CKD may not have any symptoms.
In advanced cases, patients may need dialysis, replacement therapy, or a transplant.
The study estimated that about 14 per cent of adults worldwide have some form of CKD, making it one of the most common chronic diseases.
Besides harming the kidneys, CKD greatly raises the risk of heart problems and is responsible for about 12 percent of heart-related deaths worldwide.
In 2023, CKD was also the 12th leading cause of disability that lowers quality of life. The main risk factors are high blood sugar, high blood pressure, and obesity.
Experts say that early detection and treatment of CKD can change its course. New medications, such as SGLT2 inhibitors and GLP-1 therapies, can slow the disease and lower the risk of heart attack and stroke.
However, access to these treatments is still uneven, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America, where dialysis and transplants are hard to get and costly.
“Chronic kidney disease is underdiagnosed and undertreated,” said study co-lead author Morgan Grams, MD, PhD. She called for more regular urine tests and affordable treatments to help find the disease early.
The World Health Organisation now includes CKD in its plan to reduce early deaths from noncommunicable diseases by one-third before 2030.
Since CKD deaths are expected to rise even as deaths from stroke and heart disease fall, experts say governments and health systems need to act quickly to focus on CKD prevention, diagnosis, and treatment around the world.
The report highlights an important change: CKD is no longer seen only as a late-stage illness that needs dialysis or a transplant.
It is now recognised as a silent, common, and deadly disease linked to some of the world’s leading causes of death, and it can be found and treated earlier.
