Association Between Physical Performance and Incidence of End-stage Renal Disease in Older Adults: a National Wide Cohort Study

Background: Physical frailty has previously been associated with adverse clinical outcomes in patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD). This study aimed to determine whether impaired physical performance at baseline is associated with the incidence of ESRD, using a nationwide database.

Methods: The timed up-and-go (TUG) test was used to assess physical frailty in 1,552,781 66-year-old individuals, using health examination database records from the Korean National Health Insurance Service. As a primary endpoint, incident ESRD was defined operationally using healthcare claims data from the Korean Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service.

Results: Our results showed that baseline kidney function was significantly worse in individuals with TUG results of > 10 s compared to individuals with an intact TUG performance (≤10 s). Kaplan-Meier analysis showed a stepwise dose-response relationship between baseline physical performance and the incidence rate of ESRD (log-rank test P-value of < 0.001). An increasing ESRD incidence rate trend with poor physical performance remained significant after adjusting for characteristics such as baseline glomerular filtration rate and proteinuria.

Conclusion: Poor baseline physical performance was associated with an increased risk of ESRD, suggesting possible interactions between systemic frailty and vascular aging processes.