You may have seen charts that indicate what color and shade urine ‘should’ be, but ‘considered imprecise’. Experts don’t rely on them for serious purposes such as managing kidney disease Photograph: Anna Efetova/Getty Images View image in fullscreen You may have seen charts that indicate what color and shade urine ‘should’ be, but ‘considered imprecise’. Experts don’t rely on them for serious purposes such as managing kidney disease Photograph: Anna Efetova/Getty Images Call the doctor Well actually Is having urine the color of Mountain Dew normal? A Trump administration doctor says neon yellow urine is normal because of diets consisting entirely of meat and fermented foods. Here’s what experts say
Prefer the Guardian on Google A doctor who advises several Trump cabinet members on their diets rhapsodized this summer about having urine the color of Mountain Dew, thanks to a diet consisting entirely of meat and fermented foods.
What you consume does determine what you see in the toilet. But should urine be neon yellow – or some other hue? Here’s what you need to know.
Urine is normally a shade of yellow owing to a pigment called urobilin, which your gut bacteria produce. The more diluted it is by extra fluid intake, the lighter its shade – so urine is typically darker in the morning or when you’re dehydrated.
Read more You may have seen charts that indicate what color and shade urine “should” be, but “they are considered imprecise” and experts don’t rely on them for serious purposes such as managing kidney disease, says Suzanne Watnick, a nephrologist at the University of Washington. Urine’s darkness or lightness loosely corresponds with hydration status, but for most people, it’s best to rely on your sense of thirst rather than what’s in the toilet to determine when to drink water.
That said, in people who need to stay highly hydrated, urine shade can be a helpful hydration indicator. For example, people prone to kidney stones should aim for very pale urine, Watnick says.
Your kidneys constantly filter blood to remove excess water and waste products , which trickle down to the bladder to get peed out as urine. These organs’ goal is to ensure your blood consistently has exactly the right balance of fluid, minerals, salts and acid.
“Your kidneys are really smart,” says Sharon Moe, a nephrologist at Indiana University School of Medicine. As long as they’re healthy, you can’t really override their settings. For instance, if you consume more water-soluble nutrients than you need, anything “extra” ends up in the toilet. This includes the by-products your body makes when it breaks down food and medicines, as well as the majority of any vitamins and supplements you might be taking.
Some of these compounds won’t visibly change urine – for instance, digesting a lot of beef is likely to turn urine more acidic but not change its color, says Watnick. But some can change the color of urine or make it exceptionally bright. B vitamins (like riboflavin) can turn it fluorescent yellow, rhubarb a reddish-brown, and beets a festive pink.
Anything but the usual yellow – including Mountain-Dew-adjacent hues – may signal your body is consuming something it can’t use. “If you get super fluorescent or super red, you’re eating too much of something or taking too many supplements,” says Moe.
For most healthy people, urine color changes are rarely an emergency. Notable exceptions include people with kidney disease, or if the color change is accompanied by…