A study carried out on employees at a University in Japan has found that those who drank two or more soda drinks a day were more likely to have protein in their urine compared to the employees who drank less soda, or none on a daily basis.
Finding protein in your urine is vital as it is seen as an early marker of kidney damage. One that is potentially reversible too, if diagnosed in its early stages.
This latest study was carried out on more than 12,000 employees who were simply offered urine testing as part of their annual health checkup at their health centre. The results of the employees urine samples were then collected and analysed for evidence of protein.
The results then showed that almost 11 percent of employees who said they drank two or more soft drinks per day did in fact have protein in their urine during the three years of follow up tests the researchers carried out.
Whereas, other results showed that 9 percent of the employees who drank one can a day, and 8.4 percent who didn’t drink any soda at all also tested positive for protein in their urine.
What this new study tells us is there is an association only at this stage between drinking soft drinks and having an increased risk of kidney damage. Not necessarily proving that soda was the culprit here.
A study similar to this but that involved rats and not humans also demonstrated that a moderate consumption of a type of sugar called fructose increased the rats kidney’s sensitivity to a protein that regulates salt balance.