In a large cohort of active young and middle-aged adults, modest but statistically significant associations were noted between the highest observed doses of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) exposure and incident kidney problems. The retrospective, longitudinal cohort study used deidentified medical and administrative data on 764,228 active-duty US Army soldiers serving between January 1, 2011, and December 31, 2014. Interventions included mean total defined daily doses of prescribed NSAIDs dispensed per month in the prior 6 months. Researchers found:

• 65.8% of participants (85.8% men, median age 27.0 years) were not dispensed prescription NSAIDs in the prior 6 months; 17.9% were dispensed 1 to 7 mean total defined daily doses per month, and 16.3% received >7 defined daily doses per month.
• There were 2,356 acute kidney injury outcomes (0.3%) and 1,634 chronic kidney disease outcomes (0.2%) observed.
• NSAID prescriptions of >7 daily defined doses per month were associated with modest but significant increases in the adjusted hazard ratios of acute and chronic kidney disease diagnoses.