Half a million people in S'pore suffer from kidney disease

Here is a sobering statistic: Half a million people in Singapore have kidney disease.

This was revealed in an interview segment on CNA on Mar. 13, 2025, which was World Kidney Day.

High incidence of kidney disease

Singapore ranks fourth in the world for kidney failure rates, despite a small population, as per the CNA segment.

"As we get older, our kidney function naturally declines," adjunct associate professor Yeo See Cheng, who is head of department of renal medicine at Tan Tock Seng Hospital, said during an interview.

As people get older, there is an increased chance of having chronic illnesses, as diabetes and high blood pressure are risk factors for kidney disease, he added.

Affluent lifestyle

Yeo also attributed the incidence of kidney disease to the "affluent lifestyle" of people in Singapore, as well as the ageing population.

This has resulted in dietary habits and exercise patterns changing, he said.

Health consciousness alone may not be enough, Yeo added.

Sodium intake in diets could have gone up even as people have become more active and conscious of their sugar and salt intake.

This is the case as sodium could be hidden in sauces, seasoning and gravy, Yeo said in the interview.

People in Singapore take more than double the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommended intake of sodium, he added.

Kidney disease figures

The incidence of kidney disease in Singapore has remained roughly the same over the last few years.

The Straits Times previously reported in August 2024 that the National Population Health Survey 2022 found that 14 per cent of the population from ages 18 to 74 had chronic kidney disease, up from 9 per cent two years earlier.

Globally, it was estimated that one in 10 people suffer from kidney disease.

Projections

Moreover, one in four people here — close to 900,000 people — will suffer from chronic kidney disease by 2035.

This is according to predictions by experts from the National Healthcare Group and the National University of Singapore, whose article was published in the International Journal of Nephrology in 2018.

The largest proportion of kidney disease sufferers will have early stages of the disease though, they said.

Singapore has the third-highest incidence of stage five chronic kidney disease, after Taiwan and the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Stage one and two are considered mild, with the kidneys still working fairly normally.

End-stage renal disease is where the kidneys are close to not working or have failed altogether.

What is kidney disease?

Most patients with chronic stage one and two kidney disease do not have any symptoms, ST reported, a point reiterated by Yeo.

It is usually when kidney function declines that the sufferer will notice the effects of kidney disease, Yeo said.

Patients with diabetes, high blood pressure, or who are overweight, and who smoke are at risk of kidney disease, the doctor reiterated during the interview.

Trend of dialysis in Singapore

The number of people getting kidney failure here has gone up by 40 per cent over the past decade, ST reported.

Among patients starting dialysis in 2022, three in five were men.

In Singapore, for every one million Malays, 459 required dialysis in 2022, compared with 150 per million for Chinese, and 183 for the Indian population.

Kidney failure, or fifth-stage chronic kidney disease, happens when the kidneys lose their ability to function, resulting in the accumulation of waste products and fluid in the body.

This is when patients are treated with haemodialysis, the process where a person’s blood is removed, cleaned and returned to the body.

There is also peritoneal dialysis, where people can manage their own treatment at home as it gives patients more freedom and retain more control over their treatment regime.

Yeo said general practitioners or polyclinic doctors can help to screen individuals for risks of kidney disease.

Early-stage kidney disease can be detected via blood tests, and lifestyle changes can improve the condition upon detection of early chronic kidney disease.

Top photo via Unsplash