Effects of Body Weight Change on Development of Chronic Kidney Disease in Obese Metabolic Phenotypes

Obesity is a risk factor for chronic kidney disease (CKD), but whether the reduction of body mass index (BMI) helps prevent CKD is controversial. Recently, obese metabolic phenotypes have raised considerable interest. We thus investigated the effect of BMI change on CKD development.

We analyzed the data of 6,959 subjects who underwent annual health checkups in both 2013 and 2018. The subjects were categorized into five groups according to their BMI percentage change (ΔBMI) and classified into four obese metabolic phenotypes. By a multivariate logistic regression analysis, we investigated the association between BMI change and CKD development within the 5 years.

In total subjects, compared with the maintained BMI group (ΔBMI ≥0% but <2.5%), the odd ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of CKD development were 0.70 (95% CI 0.54-0.91) for the severe BMI decrease group (ΔBMI <-2.5%), and 1.40 (95% CI 1.08-1.81) for the severe BMI increase group (ΔBMI ≥5%). In the metabolically healthy obese (MHO) phenotype, the risks of CKD development were significantly higher in the moderate BMI increase group (ΔBMI ≥2.5% but <5%) (OR 3.04, 95% CI 1.19-7.78) and a severe BMI increase group (OR 2.88, 95% CI 1.13-7.35). Regarding the metabolically unhealthy nonobese (MUNO) phenotype, the risks of CKD development were significantly lower in the severe BMI decrease group (OR 0.43, 95% CI 0.25-0.74) and the moderate BMI decrease group (ΔBMI ≥-2.5% but <0%) (OR 0.58, 95% CI 0.35-0.98).

In the MHO phenotype, an increased BMI deteriorated CKD development, and a decreased BMI ameliorated CKD development in the MUNO phenotype.