

Insights Your Urine Can Offer - lvevjo
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leslie-spry-md-facp/personal-health-_b_5069148.html

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lvevjo
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...](http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-
conditions/dehydration/basics/symptoms/con-20030056)

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](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

