Frailty Linked to Incident Cognitive Decline in Men With CKD

MONDAY, Sept. 28, 2026 (HealthDay News) — For men with nondialysis chronic kidney disease (CKD), frailty seems to be an independent risk factor for incident cognitive impairment, according to a study published online July 9 in GeroScience.

Stephanie Lapierre‑Nguyen, Ph.D., from the University of Colorado Anschutz in Aurora, and colleagues examined the association between frailty and incident cognitive impairment in participants of the Chronic Renal Insufficiency Cohort study. The association was examined in the entire cohort and stratified by sex (1,370 patients; 41 percent women).

The researchers found that frailty was more prevalent in women than men at baseline (16 versus 9 percent), while the incidence of cognitive impairment was higher among men than women (3.2 versus 1.9 events/100 person-years). Men with frailty had a significantly higher risk for cognitive impairment than men without frailty during a median follow-up of 5.5 years (hazard ratio, 2.09 in the fully adjusted model); no association was seen in women.

“We can”t always identify early CKD and prevent the disease from manifesting, but we can identify frailty in these patients, so maybe intervening early on in the nonfrail and the prefrail CKD patients can help preserve their cognitive function,” Lapierre-Nguyen said in a statement.

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