Out of all the things in the world, and you pick up urine to write about. Is that what you’re thinking about? It may sound strange and bizarre to listen or read about urine, but boy it’s important down to every line. Urine is one thing that can offer great insight into the diabetic condition of the patient. We here would look into the correlation between diabetes and urine as part of our informative series.

Let’s head down and have a look as to how your urine says a lot about your health condition.

Diabetes & Urine, A strange yet important relation

It has long been practices that the urine color, consistency, and smell has been a benchmark for seeking the status of diabetes within the patient’s body. Up until the recent development of sophisticated machines that help gauge blood glucose levels, urine helped in finding the answers that one sought. But nonetheless, urine still hasn’t lost its place in today’s time of medical practices.

Frequent Urination and Diabetes

One of the major symptoms of diabetes is increased urination in the patient. The situation in which our body tends to urinate more than the normal is also known as polyuria.

When a patient suffers from any type of diabetes, type 1 or type 2, the major symptom of the condition is the excessive passage of urine. In other words, you not only want to urinate more frequently but the volume also increases each time you urinate. In a healthy person, the volume of urine that passes is somewhere around 1-2 liters. However, in the case of diabetes, the patient passes around 3-4 liters of urine each day.

Why Does Diabetes Cause Frequent Urination?

We know understand the reasons as to why diabetes causes frequent and increased urination.

Diabetes, as we know, is caused when our body is not able to either produce enough insulin or is unable to utilize insulin so produced efficiently. As a result of this, excess glucose or sugar tends to build up in our blood. Now, this glucose needs to be gotten rid of by the kidneys. Hence, the work of the kidneys increases to a great extent. Sometimes, the kidneys are not able to do all this extra work with the result that the body gets rid of all the extra glucose or sugar through the urine of the patient. It is to be remembered that it is not only the sugar or glucose that is excreted. In the process of getting rid of all the excess sugar, the essential fluids from the various tissues are also thrown away from the body.

Difference Between Diabetes Mellitus and Diabetes Insipidus

As we know that a few people tend to believe that both diabetes mellitus and diabetes insipidus are one and the same. However, the two are not related to one another although a few symptoms, such as increased urination, may be similar in both diabetes mellitus and diabetes insipidus.

In this paragraph, we shall explore the difference in the two terms when it comes to frequent and increased urination. Following are the differences:

– To begin with, the very reason of frequent urination is different in the two cases. As seen above, frequent urination in diabetes mellitus is caused due to increase in the blood glucose level of the body. On the other hand, in the case of diabetes insipidus, the kidneys do not function appropriately causing the condition.

– As mentioned above, the total volume of urine excreted in diabetes mellitus is somewhere around 3 liters as compared to 5 liters in the case of diabetes insipidus.

– While in the case of diabetes mellitus, the urine so secreted is of normal concentration, in the case of diabetes insipidus the quality of urine is usually diluted due to the nature of the disease.

– Finally, you can find traces of ketone bodies in the urine in case of diabetes mellitus. However, the same is not true for diabetes insipidus.

What’s Urine its different colors, what does it tell you?

Urine, as commonly known by all, is the waste product from what remains the breakdown of food and drinks. The human bodily function works as part of breaking down the food particles and drinks so as to use up the nutrients. The remaining waste after filtration is flushed outside via the urinary duct.

Urine although seemingly a waste product contains more than 3000 compounds that are filtered out by the kidneys to be flushed outside. See there’s that important role kidney plays in our well-being. Another reason for keeping your kidney healthy and functioning.

We’ll look to tie up different colors of urine as seen in the cases of human body and list out the signs that they are offering up.

Bright Yellow

• It’s common to see your urine bright yellow, kind of like glowing in the dark type, but it’s not something alarming. The reason body flushes out bright yellow urine is likely down to the vitamins like Vitamin-B and carotene that are taken as part of medication.

Orange

• Orange, do urine come in orange color, ever? Well, yes human urine does become orange in cases like of certain medications. Normally, the laxatives, chemotherapy drugs and more can cause the urine to go orange. Furthermore, orange colored urine is also an indication that your liver is starting to show problems or you’re just dehydrated.

Blue or Green

• Well if you thought orange to be ridiculous, then think of the blue or green color. This type is normally seen in cases where the person is taking medications like amitriptyline or propofol. Another peculiar reason for the same is food dyes or even a urinary tract infection of the body.

Brown

• The major reasons for brown colored urines are antibiotics, laxatives containing cascara or antimalarial medications. Also heavy intake of fava beans, aloe or rhubarb can too cause the urine to go brown. Furthermore, cases of hepatitis or cirrhosis or some liver disorders too are cause for it.

Cloudy

• Cloudy, well that results because of vaginal infection or dehydration or UTI. The urine might even appear milky in some cases. If it does show milky appearance, then that’s down to the presence of bacteria or fat or blood cells in the urine.

Pink or Red

• Red urine is associated with the presence of blood in the urine. In cases of UTI or an enlarged prostate or even injury to the urinary tract, urine comes off as pink or red in color. In some cases, the red or pink sign of urine might be because of tumor or kidney stones. But hold on, if you intake quite a lot of beets or berries, then that too can cause it to go red or pink. In that case, it’s nothing to worry off.

Well, that was about the different colors of urine, how about different smells of urine, then? Off we go for that one, shall we?

Different smells of Urine

Sweet

• A sweet smelling urine is an indication of high levels of glucose or sugar in the body. Normally the urine smells sweet frequently in cases of diabetes as the blood sugar levels are damn high at that time.
• For patients with Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes, sweet smelling urine might be the result of ketones, something that occurs with the intake of insulin. Have a roundup of your nearest pharmacy and ask for the ketone sticks which shall help you in measuring the urine ketones.

Funny

• Well going by the norms of the dictionary, funny isn’t a smell. But ever thought of what word to assign to something different than normal. Well, we labeled it as funny. A funny smell means a different smell that of normal days.
• Commonly it’s down to what you ate or drank the last time. For example, gulping a bunch of asparaguses can cause your urine to have a strong Sulphur smell. Medicines too cause some sort of funny or different smell in the urine. While rarely, the genetic condition might come into play for some.

What really is a healthy urine?

Healthy urine for the most part should be straw-colored or pale yellow. That’s one sign of a healthy urine. As for the smell, healthy urine is odorless and smells as of you normal outing.

Things to do in case of different color or smell of Urine

It the different outlook comes just for a day or for one instance, then it’s relatively harmless and there’s nothing to worry about. However, if the condition prevails, then the best bet is to have an appointment with the doctor.

Thus, as is clear from the above post, frequent and increased urination is a major problem in diabetes. The patient not only has inconvenience due to the problem, he or she loses all the essential fluids from the body as well. Hence, it is of prime importance to deal with diabetes effectively. You need to consult the doctor immediately in case you see changes in the frequency and quality of the urine so secreted!

Well, that’s all from us on this one. We hope to have helped you with the piece. We’ll be back with another one in the nearest future. Stay tuned.