Chronic kidney disease (CKD) represents a significant public health burden worldwide and several risk factors have been identified over the years; these have been well-described in the medical literature. Common risk factors such as diabetes mellitus and hypertension will be described in other chapters. While this chapter will focus mainly on CKD risk factors observed in developed countries, several of these are also observed in developing countries. It is now well-established that some risk factors are modifiable while others are non-modifiable. In this chapter, we will explore several of these non-modifiable risk factors in more detail, such as age, gender, race, family history, and low birth weight. But we will also discuss some of the modifiable risk factors such as kidney stones, obstructive sleep apnea, smoking, drugs (excluding NSAIDs), diet, obesity, metabolic syndrome, and hyperuricemia. We will provide a balanced and up to date review of the evidence linking these risk factors with CKD.
