Insights Your Urine Can Offer

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leslie-spry-md-facp/personal-health-_b_5069148.html

by lvevjo • 12 years ago

2 1 12 years ago

lvevjo• 12 years ago

I shortened the title from its original version: '5 Key Health Insights Your Urine Can Offer'. A bit linkbaity, I know, but this is HuffPost we're talking about. Feel free to change it.

Big takeaway from the article: pay attention to what your body is telling you. Unless your urine is clear or very light yellow most of the time (perhaps not when you first get up in the morning), it is likely that you are dehydrated. More info:

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/dehydration/ba...

Solution? Drink more water. Not a crazy amount of water, but more than you already drink. The next few times you urinate, pay attention to the color. Watch the urine stream, not the water in the toilet. Is it much lighter/clearer than before? You were probably not drinking enough water before. Not convinced that there is a causal relationship between your hydration and urine color? Do a 'washout period' where you go back to your previous hydration level for a day or two, then observe urine again, then increase hydration and observe again. Do not trust your thirst as a gauge of hydration. If you are thirsty, chances are you're already dehydrated.

An exception to the 'brightly colored urine is bad' heuristic is riboflavin:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riboflavin#Toxicity

Excess dietary riboflavin is harmless. Other B vitamins can do this too, apparently, so you can expect your urine to look funny if you've taken a multivitamin recently.

More broadly, my advice is to keep an eye out for strange, unexplained changes in your normal physiological function, because these changes might mean trouble.

(Warning: possible 'TMI moment' ahead.)

It amazes me when I walk up to a urinal and find that the previous person who used the urinal not only neglected to flush it (damn you!), their pee is a horrible dark brownish yellow color. This can't be healthy. (The behavior that led to the brown urine, I mean, not my habit of noticing other people's urine.)

Oh, and painful urination is definitely a concern (as in, tell your doctor), but I think you knew that already.

/end public service announcement

Insights Your Urine Can Offer

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