Background: This study was designed to evaluate whether changes in lifestyle behaviors are correlated with the incidence of chronic kidney disease (CKD).

Methods: The subjects consisted of 316 men without a history of cardiovascular disease, stroke, or renal dysfunction or dialysis treatment. The following lifestyle behaviors were evaluated using a standardized self-administered questionnaire: habitual moderate exercise, daily physical activity, walking speed, eating speed, late-night dinner, bedtime snacking, skipping breakfast, and drinking and smoking habits. The subjects were divided into four categories according to the change in each lifestyle behavior from baseline to the end of follow-up (healthy–healthy, unhealthy–healthy, healthy–unhealthy and unhealthy–unhealthy).

Results: A multivariate analysis showed that, with respect to habitual moderate exercise and late-night dinner, maintaining an unhealthy lifestyle resulted in a significantly higher odds ratio (OR) for the incidence of CKD than maintaining a lifestyle (OR 8.94; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.10–15.40 for habitual moderate exercise and OR 4.00; 95% CI, 1.38–11.57 for late-night dinner). In addition, with respect to bedtime snacking, the change from a healthy to an unhealthy lifestyle and maintaining an unhealthy lifestyle resulted in significantly higher OR for incidence of CKD than maintaining a healthy lifestyle (OR 4.44; 95% CI, 1.05–13.93 for healthy–unhealthy group and OR 11.02; 95% CI, 2.83–26.69 for unhealthy–unhealthy group).

Conclusions: The results of the present study suggest that the lack of habitual moderate exercise, late-night dinner, and bedtime snacking may increase the risk of CKD.