Abstract

Chronic kidney disease is associated with an increase in cardiovascular risk and mortality, and a decrease in the health-related quality of life. It is known that the physical capacity of patients with chronic kidney disease is lower than their healthy counterparts. It also decreases progressively after the start of hemodialysis, even leading to the loss of functional independence. There is a positive association between exercise and improvement of many targets in chronic kidney disease, especially in dialysis patients, such as cellular apoptosis, immune improvement and inflammation. In addition, several clinical studies and systematic reviews show an improvement in different clinical and laboratory variables and suggest a lower mortality, proving a reduction of health care economic costs. Exercise intervention in dialysis is safe. Although different guidelines promote exercise, it is necessary to work on its implementation on a large scale.