The Effect of a High-Fat Western Diet on Diabetic Nephropathy and the Pathogenesis of Type 2 Diabetes
Authors: Lowe Melissa , Bohovyk Ruslan , Levchenko Vladislav , Klemens Christine , Staruschenko Alexander 
Published: May 2024

The high-fat Western diet is a key contributor to the growing rate of obesity, which has become a global health concern. Additionally, obesity increases the risk of developing metabolic syndrome which leads to a range of chronic illnesses like diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. Diabetic Nephropathy (DN) is a complication prevalent in one-third of people with Type 2 Diabetes and leads to End Stage Renal Disease. The aim of this study was to assess how a high-fat Western diet impacts diabetic severity and renal, cardiovascular, and hepatic injury, in a rodent model of type 2 Diabetes. We used aged (>38 weeks old, with severe renal disease) and young (12 weeks old, prior to major kidney damage) male and female Type 2 Diabetic Nephropathy (T2DN) rats, a non-obese diabetic animal model, and placed them on either normal (NFD) or high fat (HFD) calorically balanced diets for 12 weeks. Urine sampling and glucose tolerance tests (GTT) were assessed every 3 weeks. All rats on the HFD had significantly increased total body weights (TBW). However, average caloric intake over the 12 weeks was not significantly different in young males and females or in old males, while the aged HFD females had a significant increase (52.18 ± 1.536 vs 67.43 ± 0.4682 kcal/g, p=0.0001). The HFD had no effect on female GTT curves or fasting blood glucose in either age group. In contrast, the HFD males’ glucose intolerance and fasting blood glucose levels increased progressively and became significantly different between diets by week 9 (old: 204.5 ± 10.8 vs 284.4 ± 15.8 mg/dL, p=0.003, young: 193.3 ± 9.497 vs 257.5 ± 17.19 mg/dL, p=0.02). The HFD did not affect urine output or 2-kidney/TBW ratios in both sexes, while heart weight/TBW ratios in females were significantly reduced on the HFD in both age groups. Studies are ongoing in young animals; however, old animals revealed a significant increase in lipid deposits in the liver of HFD group for both males and females. There were no significant changes in circulating cholesterol and triglyceride levels between diets; however, there was a trend to increased triglycerides in females on HFD (p=0.051). The liver function panel showed a significant increase in ALP liver enzyme in the HFD group of both sexes. Picrosirius red-stained heart tissue showed increased fibrosis in the HFD aged males. Microbiome analysis revealed a significant decrease in gut microbiota alpha diversity in males on HFD, while no significant changes were observed in females between diets. Ongoing studies will quantify renal damage, including cortical fibrosis, medullary protein casts, glomerular damage, albuminuria, and KIM-1 staining, as well as lipidemia and heart fibrosis resulting from the HFD for both old and young animals. In conclusion, the HFD appears to have a more deleterious effect on glucose handling in both old and young T2DN males than in female rats; however, further studies are warranted to validate this effect.

R01 DK129227, R01 DK135644, R00 HL153686.

This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2024 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.