What the Color of Your Urine Can Tell You About Your Health

What the Color of Your Urine Can Tell You About Your Health

Urine Color: Your urine can tell you a lot about your health and your habits. Urine is produced when blood passes through the kidneys, which filter out excess waste and water. This waste travels through tubes known as ureters and is stored in the bladder until you urinate.

Urine is roughly 95 percent water, and the rest is composed of thousands of compounds both inorganic and organic exiting the body. Certain changes in your urine or urine habits, either during or after urination, may indicate that you have a medical condition.

What the Color of Your Urine Can Tell You About Your Health


Frequent Urination at Night in Type 2 Diabetes

What is Urinary Tract Infection

bladder-control-problems

 Frequent Urination

These signs often include:

What your urine color says about your health, according to a GP

Pale straw: This is the ideal urine color and demonstrates a person is sufficiently hydrated, Cosmopolitan reported. Lighter color than this indicates the individual is probably drinking more water than they need to. Although usually harmless, this may cause them to urinate overly frequently.

Dark yellow: Amber-coloured urine suggests somebody is dehydrated and should drink water as soon as possible.

Green: Although it may be alarming, green urine is usually harmless and occurs as a result of eating particular foods, such as asparagus or artificial colorings.

In rare cases, however, green urine is a sign of the rare genetic disease familial hypercalcemia, which causes abnormally high calcium levels in the blood. Green urine can also occur as a side effect of certain medications.

Red: Red urine is also usually due to eating certain foods, such as beetroot. Yet, it can also be due to blood, such as during menstruation or, in more serious cases, infections, or even cancers. If people are unable to link their red urine to the food they have eaten recently, they should visit their GP as soon as possible.

When to bring in the professionals for urine color:

Sometimes changes to a person’s urine are temporary and harmless, such as the result of eating certain foods, taking medications or vitamins. But changes can also be a sign of a more serious underlying medical condition.

Anytime you see blood in your urine or notice it is brown or orange, it is time to seek medical attention and make an appointment with your primary care provider. This is especially true if the change lasts more than a day, or if it comes with back or side pain, fever, burning with urinating, vomiting, discharge or thirst.

Blood in the urine is a common sign of a urinary tract infection, kidney stones or urinary tract cancer. Brown or orange urine may be caused by a malfunctioning liver especially if it is partnered with pale stools and yellow eyes and skin.