Health Tips - What your urine says about your health
What Your Urine is Telling You About Your Health
By Sally Wadyka for MSN Health & Fitness
Subject:* What your urine says about your health
What Your Urine is Telling You About Your Health
By Sally Wadyka for MSN Health & Fitness
A trip to the toilet may be more revealing than you think. “The
appearance and smell of your urine—as well as the frequency With
which
you have to go—can provide many clues to what else is going on in
your
body,” says Dr. Michael Farber, director of the Executive Health
Program
at Hackensack University Medical Center in Hackensack, N.J.
Looking Pale
If your urine is as colorless as water, well, that’s probably
because
you’ve been drinking a lot of water. And besides the inconvenience
Of
going to the bathroom many times a day because your bladder is
Filling
up with fluid faster, there’s really nothing medically worrisome
About
having a light colored output.
Too Dark
If your urine has a brownish, iced
tea-colored tinge, that could be a
sign that you are **dehydrated*
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and the kidney is producing more
concentrated (as opposed to diluted)
urine.
The
urine gives good indications of the body’s level of
hydration, Farber says, “so if a
patient complains of dizziness or
lightheadedness, you would want to check the urine to rule out
dehydration as a cause of the problem.
The ideal shade to strive for is the color of straw. Another reason to get
yourself checked out if you see dark urine—especially if it doesn’t lighten up after you drink a few glasses of water—is that the cause could actually be blood.
It won’t
be as obvious as a bright red drop In the toilet, but it could be a
sign of
bleeding higher up in the kidney which could indicate an infection,
kidney disease or even cancer.
Sweet Smelling
Catching a whiff of something sugary sweet after you pee might actually
be a clue to something very serious going on in your body.
A sugary smell
might indicate the presence of blood sugar that’s being excreted
in the urine,” says Farber. And a
high concentration of blood sugar in
the urine is one sign of **diabetes*
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The kidney acts as a filter for all sorts of waste that flows
through the body. But if your* *Filter is damaged, things can leak out of
it and end up being excreted In the urine.
In the
case of diabetes, excess blood sugar sneaks out Through a leaky
filter and shows up in the urine. If you are pregnant changes in
the kidney filtration system
can result in the presence of Sugar in the urine. Whether pregnant
or
not, if a doctor finds sugar in your urine, he or she should order
further tests to determine if Diabetes is a concern.
Funny Smelling
It can be a little bit disconcerting, but, smelling an Odd odor
when you
pee is probably nothing to be worried about.
Certain
foods—asparagus, most notoriously—produce a sulfur-containing Amino
acid. So when the food is broken down in the digestive system,
Those smelly substances are
released, filtered through the kidney, And then make their way into
the
urine where they create an unpleasant scent.
As soon as the food responsible has been fully digested
And flushed from your system completely, the smell will vanish as well.
Bright Yellow
Urine that looks nearly neon-colored may seem somewhat Alarming,
but the
cause is most likely nothing more than sinister Than your daily
multivitamin pill.
The B vitamins and carotene in particular give the urine a deeper, more golden color,” says Dr. Deborah J. Lightner,* *Associate professor of urology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester , Minn. and don’t worry: That brightly colored urine means you’re simply pissing away all of your expensive supplements.
The urine
color can be affected as the vitamins filter through your
system—even as they are being absorbed and utilized.
A Spot Of Blood
Seeing a splash of red in the toilet can mean many things—Some
quite
benign, others quite serious.
For that reason, you should always have your doctor check your urine if you see blood,” Warns Lightner. “In an otherwise healthy young woman, the chances are overwhelmingly in favor of it being a sign of a urinary tract infection
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but blood in the urine is also one **Of the seven deadly signs of
bladder
cancer.
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in both women and in men. Beyond the possibilities of infection or
(worst case scenario) cancer, blood in the urine can also be caused
by
microscopic trauma or tears (not uncommon after an endurance event
like
a marathon), **kidney stones*
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Or as a side effect of taking blood-thinning medication or daily aspirin
therapy.
Always Gotta Go
You’ve seen the commercials of people racing to the bathroom in
a
panic because they have to go so often and so urgently.
There are
a variety of possible causes, and unless you are going so often
that it’s
truly affecting your life, frequent bathroom urges probably are not
cause
for concern (or for taking the medications advertised in those
commercials).
Look
first at your diet and lifestyle. If you’ve suddenly
picked up the habit of toting a water bottle with you everywhere
and
have greatly increased your H2O intake, the reason could be as
simple as
the fact that you’re filling your bladder up more often and more
quickly
than you used to—and, consequently, it needs to be emptied more
frequently than it used to. Or maybe you’ve recently changed your
diet to
include foods that contain more water (such as fruits and
vegetables) and
act as diuretics, or begun taking medications (like drugs used to treat
high blood pressure
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which are
also diuretics. One of the common symptoms of a
urinary tract infection is an urgent need to pee (often without
being able to
once* *you get to the toilet).
Growing older can also be to blame for increased frequency and urgency in
both men and women—as the way the kidney and the bladder make and
discharge urine changes with age.
For men, however, the prostate may play a role. It’s not uncommon as men age
for the prostate to become enlarged and cause an obstruction that causes weak urine flow
and prevents the bladder from emptying effectively, which then creates
the need to go more often.
A Little Leakage
It’s one of those topics no one likes to talk about, but a lot
of
women—even very young women who have never gone through
childbirth—experience some type of urinary incontinence
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Stress incontinence is a condition in which the muscles of
the
pelvic floor can’t handle the increased pressure of high impact
activities like running or gymnastics, or even something like
coughing
or sneezing, Lightner says.
And when the pelvic floor is too weak to withstand that sort of pressure,
the result is that a small amount of urine will leak out.
The situation often begins—or gets significantly worse—after a woman
gives birth.
The best solution is to strengthen the pelvic floor by regularly*
*doing
Kegel exercises (in which you repeatedly contract and release those
muscles as if you were trying to stop your flow of urine).
Another
type of urinary incontinence is called urge incontinence, and it is
characterized, not by weak muscles, but by a bladder malfunction.
The bladder
will fir without your permission, so you won’t necessarily get
the signal to head to the bathroom before your bladder decides
it’s time to empty itself,” says Lightner.
A Burning Sensation
If you are suddenly experiencing pain when you pee, it’s
highly likely
that you are experiencing one of the first signs of a urinary tract
infection.
Such
infections are incredibly common among sexually
active, pre-menopausal women, thanks to the fact that the female
anatomy
puts a relatively short urinary canal in close proximity with the
vagina
and rectum.
That
proximity makes it very easy for bacteria to find its
way into the urethra and up the urinary canal. Oral antibiotics can
clear the infection up within days, and increasing fluids can
help flush
out bacteria to shorten the duration of the infection.
The male anatomy makes urinary tract infections a much rarer event for men, but they can happen—
and, Lightner warns, similar signs and symptoms
in men can also
signal an infection of the prostate.