This subject along with many others are quite common. We will do our best to answer this and many other similar questions in this article which should ease your mind regarding this subject.
What You Eat Or Drink
Cleveland Clinic: “Urine Changes.”
Metabolites: “Quantitative Determination of Common Urinary Odorants and Their Glucuronide Conjugates in Human Urine.”
Indiana University Health: “Urine Trouble If You Eat Asparagus.”
UnityPoint Health: “What Causes Urine to Smell Bad?”
CPT: Pharmacometrics & Systems Pharmacology: “Crowdsourced Asparagus Urinary Odor Population Kinetics.”
BMJ: “Sniffing out significant ‘Pee values’: genome wide association of asparagus anosmia.”
Yale Medicine: “5 Ways You Could Pee Better.”
Family Practice: “Accuracy of urinary symptoms and urine microscopy in diagnosing urinary tract infection in women.”
CDC: “Urinary Tract Infection,” “Chlamydia: Treatment and Care.”
Kidney Health (Australia): “Fact Sheet: Kidney Stones.”
Leslie, S.W., Sajjad, H., Nazzal, L. “Renal Calculi (Cystinuria, Cystine Stones).” StatPearls Publishing, 2020.
What The Color Of Your Pee Is Telling You
“More specifically it tends to be an excess of riboflavin, or vitamin B2, that may turn your pee bright yellow,” Kirkpatrick says. Advertisement
B vitamins may also give urine a greenish tinge, according to the Cleveland Clinic, while high intakes of vitamin C can turn your pee an orange shade.
Vitamins And Smelly Pee
If it’s the smell of your urine that’s concerning you instead of the shade, this could also be due to water-soluble vitamins — more specifically vitamin B6, which produces musty-smelling pee, Kirkpatrick says. “Some people describe it as a bit like the smell of the vitamin tablets themselves when you open the bottle,” she adds. Advertisement
To avoid your pee changing color or smell, the UK’s National Health Service suggests taking no more than 10 milligrams of vitamin B6 daily.
However, if you don’t mind weird-smelling urine, the National Center for Biotechnology Information lists the Upper Intake Level (UL) of vitamin B6 (the maximum amount it’s safe for most people to consume daily from food, beverages and supplements) at 100 milligrams. But it’s not just vitamins that change what’s in the toilet bowl. But fava beans, blackberries and rhubarb can all turn your pee a reddish or even dark brown color, too.
If you eat a lot of carrots or other vibrant veggies high in vitamin C, you might notice light orange-colored pee. According to a December 2016 study in the BMJ, 58 percent of men and 62 percent of women have “asparagus anosmia” — in other words, they don’t detect the smell of asparagus pee. Pay Attention to Your Pee
Though most temporary changes to the color and odor of your pee are harmless, some may signal a larger issue such as a bladder infection, kidney infection or even diabetes or liver failure, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
Asparagus Isn’T The Only Thing That Makes Your Pee Reek.
Asparagus is a big culprit for smelly urine; in fact, your pee can start smelling like asparagus just 20 minutes after you eat it. “The vegetable is still healthy and a good part of your diet,” says Dr. Brant. Ryazantsev Dmitriy/Shutterstock You don’t take enough trips to the bathroom If you need to go, let it flow.
Dr. Comiter refers to this condition as “teacher’s bladder” or “trucker’s bladder” because those are the people who tend to hold it in a lot since they don’t have as much time in the day to go to the bathroom due to their hectic schedules. “If you’re holding on to it, you will get extra pungent urine.” (Learn more about what happens when you hold in your pee.