A Wee Quiz on Urine

Answer: None at all

Healthy urine should be virtually sterile. Any bacteria are a sign of an infection and not something you would normally see. This is one reason urine tests are so important as any germs present will point to an infection somewhere in the body.

Answer: Drinking too much fluid

Healthy urine should be straw coloured. Anything darker means more fluid should be drunk. Clear urine, usually in larger quantities than usual, is often a sign of drinking too much, especially of diuretics such as caffeine or alcohol. You can drink too much water and this is a clue if you have.
As far as I know the other choices do not have this effect.

Answer: True

Although the initial fluid is secreted by the mother at around two weeks after conception, made from mainly water with some nutrients, it doesn't take long for this to be recycled by the foetus. Then the majority of the fluid is composed of the baby's urine.

Answer: Glucose

Glucose in the urine is not found if the urine is healthy, and if is found is usually a sign of diabetes. Many other traces of substances are present in urine as the body also excretes excess nutrients such as vitamin C and various minerals.
Although ammonia is also associated with urine it forms on decomposition of urea after it has left the body and is not part of it when fresh.

Answer: False

This is actually an urban myth, whatever they believed in the TV programme 'Friends'. In fact it has no benefit and may actually make the wound even worse.

Answer: All of these

In many cultures, especially those without easy access to conventional medicine, such as the Ayurvedic system of India, and the Aztecs, urine is used for many conditions, apparently successfully. As many nutrients are excreted when we have enough, if we run out and desperately need them then where else than someone's excesses? Vitamins that are not stored in the body like vitamin C will leave through the urine once we have absorbed enough, so it makes sense not to waste any if no other source is available. My own grandma was actually raised with a bottle of her mother's urine 'on tap' with her three siblings, and it was used for sore throats and the like.

Her sisters both lived to over 90 and she is going strong at 98 so it certainly did no harm!

Answer: Only once or twice

Although you hear stories of people drinking their own urine (or others') in the desert or when shipwrecked it does not help for long. As the urine is already mixed with salts and other impurities, drinking it again only provides a relatively small amount of water. Each time this goes through the body it will become more concentrated until it will soon be as useless as drinking sea water. So in a single situation it may well help, but not for long.

Answer: Female hormone replacement

Sometimes it's all in the name. The popular brand of oestrogen replacement sold since 1942 is called Premarin, simply abbreviated from the component it is isolated from, pregnant mare's urine. How many customers actually realise this is debatable, but urine wouldn't be used if it didn't work. Urine has been used for all the other reasons, but not normally commercially.

Answer: All of these

Ammonia and other useful chemicals often created artificially for industry can also come from totally natural sources. In pre-industrial countries it continues to be used as it was elsewhere before industrialisation. It is still commonly used as a mordant for fixing dye. A dilute solution of urine was traditionally used as a degreaser for sheep's wool before it was combed, spun and woven. Phosphates and nitrates can also be extracted for fertilizer.
Chamber Lye was made from urine collected from chamber pots and used for soaking and washing laundry.
In historical times, urine was collected and used in the manufacture of gunpowder.

Answer: Blue

Urine can be turned just about any colour but blue has fewer causes than others. Beetroot is the commonest cause of pinkish urine in some people, whereas blood will cause various shades of red if fresh and darker towards black (called melanuria) if it has clotted. Bright green can come from some supplements such as vitamin B, brown from porphyria, and orange from liver disease and some medicines. Purple can be caused by the urine becoming alkaline from the degradation of indoxyl sulfate by some bacterial infections, and a range from blue to green can also come from the bile pigment biliverdin, rare infections and a few substances found in medication.