Recent trends in the prevalence of chronic kidney disease in Korean adults: Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 1998 to 2013

Background Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is associated with aging, diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, obesity, and unhealthy lifestyle behaviors and has become a public health burden worldwide. Methods We investigated the trends of CKD prevalence over a period of 16 years in Korean adults based on the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES): phase I (1998), II (2001), III (2005), IV (2007-09), V (2010-2012), and VI (2013). Of the 105,504 individuals aged over 20 years who participated in KNHANES I-VI, 55,191 (23,729 men and 31,462 women) were included in the present study. Results The sequential percentage of glomerular filtration rate (GFR)\60 ml/min/1.73 m(2) in KNHANES I-VI was 1.0, 4.2, 3.2, 1.9, 1.6, and 2.1 % in men and 3.6, 9.3, 10.4, 3.1, 1.6, and 2.0 % in women, respectively. The percentage of proteinuria >= 1 + in men rebounded after KNHANES V (3.1, 2.9, 2.8, 1.9, 1.1, and 1.7 % in KNHANES I-VI, respectively), but in women declined across all KNHANES reads (3.4, 2.3, 1.4, 1.6, 1.0, and 0.9 %, respectively). The prevalence of CKD rebounded after KNHANES V for men (3.9, 6.8, 5.5, 3.5, 2.4, and 3.5 % in KNHANES I-VI) while those in women decreased to a plateau level (6.6, 10.9, 11.4, 4.2, 2.4, and 2.4 % in KNHANES I-VI, respectively). Conclusions Our study shows that the prevalence of CKD in Korean adults has decreased overall, but since KNHANES V there has been a rebound in men while no changes in women.