Chronic kidney disease risk up for metabolically healthy overweight, obese people

Metabolically healthy overweight and obese individuals may have an increased risk for chronic kidney disease (CKD), according to a study published online Sept. 19 in the European Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Mehmet Kanbay, M.D., from the Koc University School of Medicine in Istanbul, Turkey, and colleagues conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to examine the associations between obesity and CKD independent of metabolic syndrome by focusing on metabolically healthy obese people. Data were included from 16 studies, with 4,965,285 participants.

Across individual studies, there was considerable heterogeneity in study design, participant characteristics, and number of participants. The researchers found that the risk for CKD was progressively higher in overweight and obese patients compared with healthy normal-weight participants (relative risks, 1.29 and 1.47, respectively).

"The prevalence of metabolically healthy obesity is about 35 percent in obese persons," the authors write. "Intervening for this condition could have important public health implications. Clinical studies assessing whether lifestyle and pharmacologic treatment may prevent CKD and cardiovascular disease are needed in the metabolically healthy overweight and obese population."

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