Nutrition is a crucial factor in assessing urine, as urine represents the fluid and food processed by the body.
How much urine the body excretes depends directly on it.
If you consume a lot of fluid, you will excrete more urine.
For example, a high protein diet can lead to increased urine production, as the body converts the protein into water-soluble urea and disposes of it.
The amount of urine excreted daily can also decrease if you drink too little or if the body loses a lot of water in other ways (e.g. due to diarrhea, vomiting or heavy sweating).
Normally, urine is a clear, light yellow to colourless liquid. The less you drink, the darker the urine becomes.
The yellow color is mainly produced by urochrome (degradation product of the red blood dye hemoglobin).
But the urine can also take on other colors – red, orange, brown, green etc. Some colors indicate illnesses, others are essentially the result of different diets.
Possible colorings and their meaning are, for example:
bright yellow: often by taking supplements with vitamin B2
yellow-green / blue-green: may indicate a Pseudomonas infection
yellow-brown: often after rhubarb consumption (for acidic urine)
pink: often after rhubarb consumption (for alkaline urine)
red: There may be blood in the urine. But dyes can also be the cause, e.g. from medication or beetroot.
red-brown: There may be blood in the urine.
brown, with yellow or brown foam: Cause can be e.g. liver damage or blocked bile ducts.
Urine consists mainly of water (> 95 %). In addition, various organic and inorganic substances are found in the urine:
Organic substances:
Inorganic substances:
The pH of urine may fluctuate due to nutrition. PH values of about 5.0 to 6.0 are considered normal.
If the diet consists of a mixed diet that also contains meat, the urine is usually slightly acidic (pH 5.6 to 7.0). A vegetarian diet, on the other hand, makes the urine a little more alkaline (i.e. less acidic).
