Understand Your Kidney Health.

Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) is when there are problems with how the kidneys work or their structure that last for at least three months and can affect a person's health.

The worldwide prevalence of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) is estimated to be around 10% of the global population, meaning approximately 800 million people are affected by CKD globally.

You may be at risk for Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) if you have high blood pressure (hypertension), diabetes, or heart disease (CVD). Additionally, factors like your genetic background, exposure to air and water pollution, certain pesticides, or using medications that can harm the kidneys—such as pain relievers and some herbal remedies—can also increase your risk. It’s important to consider these factors based on where you live and your personal health history to determine if you might be at risk. If you're concerned, it's a good idea to talk to a healthcare professional.

The CKD staging heatmaps show the relative risks (RRs) for each stage of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) compared to people without CKD, looking at the overall population. However, to understand an individual's actual risk for specific health issues related to CKD, you need to use special risk prediction formulas that focus on those particular outcomes. Here we have provided The Kidney Failure Risk Equation (KFRE) calculator for you to easily find your risk of kidney failure in the next two and five years. KFRE was created and first tested in 8,391 adults from two Canadian provinces. It was later validated in over 721,000 people from more than 30 countries across four continents. This large study included participants from general populations and nephrology clinics and showed excellent accuracy, with a C-statistic of over 0.80 in 28 out of 30 groups. A calibration factor was used to improve the accuracy for some regions outside North America. Now, the total number of people in the validation studies exceeds 2 million from over 60 different groups around the world. The KFRE consistently proves to be very accurate and hasn't shown improvement when other factors, such as changes in kidney function over time or additional health conditions, are added.