Every time you pee, you have the chance to learn something
about yourself—from how hydrated you are to whether some of your vital
organs may be showing signs of dysfunction.
To help people decode the colors showing up in their toilet bowl, the
Cleveland Clinic in Ohio created an infographic detailing what a range
of urine colors, from transparent to yellow to pink, may indicate about a
person’s health. Many shifts in urine color can be explained simply by
how hydrated your body is at any given moment, according to Dr. Daniel
Shoskes, a urologist at Cleveland Clinic.
“A lot of changes simply come from the state of hydration, which is
affected by a whole bunch of things you’re doing,” Shoskes told FoxNews.com.
“The various shades of yellow to white to dark can just be a sign of
how much fluid you are taking in versus how much you’re putting out.”
But if your pee starts to look particularly strange, other factors
may be to blame. “There are colors that point to specific organs. When
you have blood in the urine, that’s a sign that there’s something coming
from the urinary tract, kidneys, bladder, prostate, or urethra,”
Shoskes said. “If it’s something that is more brownish, it can point to a
problem with the liver, but really looking at the urine grossly is just
a very first kind of screening indication that maybe more needs to be
done in terms of looking at it under microscope.”
Here, Shoskes helps us decode the numerous shades that may show up in your urine:
Transparent: If your pee is completely clear, it may
be a sign that you are drinking too much water. “There can be rare
risks with drinking a very large amount of water [including] diluting
the salts in the body," Shoskes said. “But in general, if you’re
drinking so much that your urine looks like water, you probably are
drinking more than you need.” That being said, over-hydration rarely
causes serious health issues. “You’re probably not causing yourself
great harm unless you are forcing yourself to drink far beyond what you
need,” he noted.
Pale straw to amber or honey: Lighter shades of
yellow indicate that you are probably well-hydrated—but as the color
darkens, it could be a sign you need to refuel with fluids.
Syrup or brown ale: If you’re noticing shades of
brown in your urine, it could simply be a sign that you are dehydrated.
However, it’s worth getting checked out by a doctor because brown urine
could also be indicative of a problem in the liver, Shoskes said. “If
there is liver disease or bile, some of the bile salts that the liver
should be processing and eliminating through stool are hanging around in
blood and ending up in urine—people with severe liver disease can have
brown urine,” he said. “That’s something that can be determined rather
quickly by a dip stick test of urine.” If brownish urine is starting to
worry you, consult your doctor to get it checked out.
Pink to reddish: See an unexplained red hue in the
bowl? That could be a major problem, according to Shoskes. “In urology
our most prominent [warning sign] is red, which, while it can come from
food you’ve eaten and other substances you’ve ingested, if it is coming
from blood it can often mean a problem.” If you notice a pink or red
tint to your urine—even once—it’s worth seeing a doctor, Shoskes
advised. “There’s a huge list of conditions both benign and malignant
that can cause [blood in the urine], anything from medical kidney
disease to a UTI, stones in the kidneys or bladder or the more serious
cancers of the kidney, bladder, prostate,” he said. Once a doctor
analyzes a urine sample, he will quickly be able to determine if the
pink or red tint is actually caused by blood or something else—and can
proceed with the appropriate course of action.
Blue or green: For most people, seeing blue or green
urine in the toilet bowl would be quite the shock—and urine of this
color is very rare, according to Shoskes. While some little-known
diseases, including porphyria—an inherited enzyme condition—can result
in a person having blue or green urine, a change in urine color wouldn’t
be the first sign of disease among sufferers.
Sometimes, people can urinate in strange colors after eating dyed
foods as well, Shoskes said. “It depends how well [the dyes] are
absorbed by the gut and how easily they pass into the kidney—there will
be many food dyes and substances that simply don’t get absorbed and make
their way out of the GI tract,” Shoskes said, noting that this is why
feces often contains various colors. “And when they do get excreted in
urine they can certainly cause a change and there may be some genetic
factor in how that happens. But for many people, [food dye] never
affects them.”
Certain medications can also be responsible for bizarre changes in urine color, Shoskes noted.
Non-color factors: Does your urine smell weird? It’s
probably nothing to fret about, according to Shoskes. “Smell of the
urine usually is not such a direct indicator of a disease,” Shoskes
noted. “It’s much more of an indicator of foods you’ve eaten or
medications you may be taking.”
Sometimes the consistency of urine can also appear strange—for
example, if urine looks foamier than usual. While this may simply be a
result of urinating with more force than usual, it can occasionally be
an indicator of a health-related symptom. “While usually not an issue,
just an effect of how strongly you’re urinating, occasionally
[foaminess] can be a sign of protein in the urine,” Shoskes
said. Protein in the urine can be an indicative of a kidney problem—so
if you’re concerned, ask your doctor to perform a urine analysis.
Overall, Shoskes said people should feel comfortable talking to their
physician if they notice anything strange about their urine—and should
make sure that doctors always perform a urine analysis during regular
physicals. “Urine is something that most of us look at our own several
times a day and will wonder [about],” Shoskes said. “[Noticing urine
color] is a starting point, for discussion with your doctor, not a way
to make final diagnoses.”
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