The Effect of Prevalence of Diabetes on the Epidemiology of CKD

Abstract

Increasing prevalence of diabetes around the world and changes in clinical practice have influenced the epidemiology of CKD in recent years. In many countries, including the United States, diabetes is responsible for over 40% of new cases of ESRD, surpassing other causes to become the single leading driver of incident kidney failure. Persons with diabetes-related CKD have lower survival relative to those without CKD, primarily because of the excessive risk of coexistent morbidity, particularly CVD, associated with CKD. Nonetheless, wide variation was observed in the epidemiology of CKD among populations with diabetes globally, largely because of the lack of high quality population-based studies with validated measures of CKD. Although considerable research is under way in search for better diagnostic means and more effective treatments, outside the research community and the realm of health care professionals, awareness of CKD has remained very low even among patients with diabetes.