Association of urinary albumin:creatinine ratio with incident frailty in older populations

BACKGROUND: The longitudinal relationship of albuminuria with incident frailty remains unknown. Therefore we aimed to evaluate the relation of albuminuria with the risk of incident frailty in older adults. METHODS: A total of 1115 participants ≥65 years of age (average age 80.3 years) who were free of frailty in the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey were included. The outcome was incident frailty, defined as a frailty index ≥0.25 during follow-up. Cox proportional hazards models were used to assess the association of the urinary albumin:creatinine ratio (UACR) with frailty. RESULTS: During a median follow-up duration of 5.3 years, 295 (26.5%) participants developed incident frailty. Overall, the UACR was significantly positively associated with the risk of incident frailty (P for trend = 0.005), with a significantly higher risk of incident frailty in participants in the quartile 4 of UACR {≥13.43 mg/g; hazard ratio [HR] 1.64 [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.13–2.37]} compared with those in quartile 1 (<0.73 mg/g). Consistently, when UACRs were assessed as clinical categories, compared with participants with UACR <10 mg/g, those with UACR ≥30 mg/g had a higher HR of incident frailty [HR 1.61 (95% CI 1.17–2.20)]. Accounting for the competing risk of death also did not substantially change the results. In addition, a stronger positive association between UACR and incident frailty was found in those with a higher high-sensitivity C-reactive protein level (hs-CRP) (P for interaction = 0.045). CONCLUSION: Albuminuria was positively associated with the risk of incident frailty, particularly in those with higher hs-CRP, emphasizing the importance of managing both albuminuria and inflammation for primary prevention of frailty.