This is What the Color of Your Pee Has to Say About Your Health

We all have our weird-colored pee stories. When I was a lifeguard, I once saw a woman pee in the pool. It was a bright, fluorescent lime green, and I thought she was holding something until she swam away and the color stayed. That was one of the grossest moments of my lifeguarding career.

Although these stories may be amusing, the health issues associated with weird-colored pee are not. They can be very serious.

The color of your urine is a clear sign of not only hydration, but also how well certain organs are functioning. Kidney, liver, bladder, urethra, and prostate problems may change the color of a person’s urine. Urinary tract infections will do this as well. (source)

To Learn more, take a look at this amazing infographic from Cleveland Clinic!

Now that is some good information!

It is important to note that blood in the urine does not always mean someone has a serious condition, but they should get it checked out. Also, the amount of red in the toilet does not mean a person is losing a ton of blood.

Anthony Smith, MD, professor and chief of urology at the University of New Mexico, states:

“What I always tell patients is it takes one drop of blood to turn a toilet bowl red.”

Also, some medications, vitamins, or food dyes will turn pee fluorescent green or yellow, and, like stated above in the infographic, beets, blueberries, or rhubarb can turn a person’s pee pinkish in color.

Let’s just say I learned about that the first time I had beets. Talk about a shocking experience!

Most of all, it is important to consider the color of your urine and what it is telling you about hydration. How many of us can honestly say our urine is the color of “transparent yellow” or even “pale straw color”? Not many.

Lack of hydration leads to a whole host of health problems, and fixing it is as simple as drinking water consistently throughout the day, and drinking enough. 75% of Americans may be chronically dehydrated. In truth, most of us do not drink enough water or even know how much we should drink.