A study published in Experimental Physiology says junk food diet can cause as much damage to the kidney as diabetes.

In the study, researchers observed how insulin resistance and too much sugar or fat affect glucose transporters in the kidney. They used animal models of diabetes and models of diet-induced obesity and insulin resistance to see the effects. The rats were fed junk food consisting of cheese, chocolate bars, biscuits and marshmallows for 8 weeks, or a rodent chow high in fat (containing 60%) for 5 weeks. The researchers then tested the effect of these diets on blood sugar levels and the different glucose transporters in the kidneys. The effect of the diets on these transporters was compared with the changes also seen in rat models of type 1 and type 2 diabetes.

They found that certain types of glucose transporters (GLUT and SGLT) as well as their regulatory proteins were present in a higher number in type 2 diabetic rats. But a high fat diet and junk food diet caused a similar increase in those receptors.

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