Liver fibrosis might be linked to the prevalence of chronic kidney disease (CKD). However, there is little information about the association between liver fibrosis and decreased kidney function in middle-aged and older subjects. We aimed to evaluate the influence of liver fibrosis on the incidence or prevalence of CKD stage 3–5 in a retrospective cross-sectional study (Study 1, n = 806) and a 6-year longitudinal study (Study 2, n = 380) of middle-aged and older subjects. We evaluated liver fibrosis using the Fibrosis-4 (FIB-4) index and kidney function using the estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) of all subjects. All subjects were divided into four groups on the basis of their FIB-4 score quartiles (low to high). In the Jonckheere–Terpstra trend test of Study 1, the eGFR decreased significantly from the lowest group to the highest group (p < 0.001). The Kaplan–Meier survival curve in Study 2 showed that the cumulative prevalence of CKD stage 3–5 was higher in the third quartile than the other quartiles. Our results suggest that liver fibrosis could be a useful indicator for the prevalence of CKD, even within a relatively healthy population, although liver fibrosis was not an independent risk factor.
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