Urine
Our body has the potential to tell us about what is going on with it. It often gives us some signs or symptoms whenever there is something troublesome happening in there.
The human body has different mechanisms to keep us informed about our health. Among them, our pee color and odor are the significant messengers.
Frankly, how many of us notice the color and odor of our pee? And how could it be significant in our health conditions? Let us take a good look into this matter.
Before discussing its color and odor, let us first know about the basic components of our urine.
Our urine consists of 95% water and 5% of other compouds like- salts, electrolyte and chemicals like uric acid, urea and creatinine.
If your doctor has ever got your urine tested, you may have seen the range of these compounds in those tests.
Let us talk about the urine color now,
Normally, our urine is pale yellow or straw color. It gets the color from our kidney that excretes the compound named as urobilin. It shows that your body is well hydrated with right electrolyte balance and healthy functioning of your kidneys, bladder and liver.
Transparent – if your urine is clear that certainly shows that your body is hydrated or may I say over hydrated. The excess of water dilutes other compounds present in the urine making it look too clear. When your fluid intake crosses the limit, it can potentially cause an electrolyte imbalance making you feel dizzy, fatigued and bloated.
Dark Yellow/ Honey/ Amber color – Now this is the sign of dehydration in your body. It indicates that your fluid intake is not enough. Our body has the mechanism of sucking back in the water from the kidneys whenever it suffers a lack of water which results in concentrated urine with high ratio of urobilin and other compounds in urine compared to that of water content.
Drinking enough water would probably be able to solve your problem.
Orange color – Generally, it could be due to the consumption of citrus flavored drinks or medications like Isoniazid which is an antibiotic or vitamin B12.
Dark Brown color – It is the marker of severe dehydration, or it could be due foods like beans or aloe vera. It gives you the signal of the grave water crises in your body.
Dark Red color – If the urine is dark red in color, it possibly contains blood. This condition is known as hematuria in medical terminology. Here you need to get serious and visit a doctor because the potential cause of this could be a kidney infection, kidney stones or prostate related disorders.
Pink or red– Now here, your tongue is the culprit. This is normally due to the food items having red or pink pigment in them like beetroot, blueberries, etc. However, there is nothing much to worry about.
Blue/green– Generally, it is not an issue because it could be due to blue or green dye in the consumed food products like asparagus or medications like muscle relaxants can dye the urine color as blue or green. However, rarely but it could also be caused by a fungal/ yeast or bacterial infection (pseudomonas). In patients who are catheterised, there could be a serious disease called as blue bag or sick bag.
Purple color – If the urine is purple in color there could be a potential liver or kidney malfunctioning. In some cases, it can also be the result of medications like rifampin.
Urine odor
Musty – This kind of odor indicates liver or metabolic failure.
Sweet – Sweet odor is one of the characteristic feature of diabetes.
Ammonia – It is the odor of concentrated urine contents that usually happens in the case of dehydrated. This can potentially be the indication of UTI (Urinary tract infection).
This was the broad-spectrum view on the topic. If you are dealing with some other issues related to this, then paying a visit to your doctor could possibly be a good idea.