Leisure-time, occupational, and commuting physical activity and the risk of chronic kidney disease in a working population: a prospective cohort study

Abstract

Background: Very few attempts have been made to examine the association of leisure-time physical activity with chronic kidney disease (CKD) onset. In addition, there is no prospective information on the relationship between other domains of physical activity and CKD. In this study, we examined the risk of CKD in the context of leisure-time, occupational, and commuting physical activity. Methods: This prospective cohort study included 17,331 Japanese workers (aged 20–65 years at baseline) without CKD who were followed from 2006 to 2020. Leisure-time, occupational physical activity, and the duration of walking to and from work were assessed by a questionnaire at baseline. Incident CKD was defined as estimated glomerular filtration rate < 60 mL/min/1.73 m2 and/or proteinuria [1+, 2+, or 3+] by dipstick. Cox proportional hazard regression models were used to estimate the hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of CKD. Results: During 147,752 person-years of follow-up, 4,013 participants developed CKD. After controlling for a wide range of covariates, leisure-time physical activity and walking for commute were not associated with CKD onset. By contrast, compared to the participants mostly engaging in sedentary work, those with standing/walking and fairly active work had HRs of 0.86 (95% CI: 0.79–0.94) and 0.87 (95%CI: 0.76-1.00) to develop CKD, respectively, after adjusting for all covariates including the other forms of physical activity (p for trend = 0.01). Conclusions: Occupational physical activity was associated with the risk of CKD, and leisure-time and commuting physical activity were not.