While the reason is unclear why chronic kidney disease affects men and women differently, it is something that has consistently been observed across the world, in both developed and developing countries.
According to studies by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, the average prevalence of CKD in women is 14% as opposed to 12% in men. Interestingly, researchers also found that men were likely to go on dialysis earlier in the course of their illness compared to women, for reasons that aren’t fully known.
Hospital Serdang Nephrology Department head and senior consultant nephrologist Prof Dr Goh Bak Leong, who is also the president of the Malaysian Society of Nephrology, says that there could be a variety of reasons for this, including uneven access to healthcare for women in some countries.
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