Urine smells | Urine – All about the topic!

Urine smells

Normal, healthy urine is largely odorless. Again, the more colorless and odorless it is, the healthier it is. However, some foods can cause strong-smelling urine in a healthy state.

The most prominent examples are asparagus, coffee, onions or garlic. If the smell is strong and persists for several days, food is unlikely to be the cause. There can be various problems behind it.

Unpleasant odours can be caused by bacteria. In the case of kidney inflammation or urinary tract infections this can occur. Some diseases can be detected by a conspicuous or foul-smelling urine.

These include diabetes mellitus, “maple syrup disease” and hyperacidity of the blood due to so-called “ketone bodies”, which can occur in diabetes mellitus or in a severe state of hunger. Drinking a sufficient amount of water and abstaining from certain foods will in most cases protect you from foul-smelling urine. A fish smell in urine can have various causes.

  • In the context of bacterial infection, especially by Chlamydia, the urine can take on a foul fish smell.
  • In women, this odor can also occur at the bottom of an infection or inflammation of the vagina, in men at the bottom of an infection or inflammation of the prostate.
  • Infected kidney stones and inflammation of the renal pelvis can cause similar symptoms.
  • A rare disease, trimethylaminuria (TMAU), can also explain the smell of fish. This metabolic disease is characterized by the absence of specific liver enzymes. This leads to a reduced metabolism of the trimethylamine contained in fish or eggs.

    Affected persons also complain of foul-smelling sweat and other secretions (vaginal secretion, saliva).

  • Taking certain medicines such as some antibiotics and certain diets can also affect the smell of urine.

Honey-sweet urine can be related to food intake. In this case, however, the smell of the urine should neutralize after a few visits to the toilet. If this is not the case, a sugar disease, diabetes mellitus could be behind it.

Diabetes Mellitus is a disease in which the body is no longer able to lower blood sugar levels sufficiently. When the amount of sugar in the blood reaches a certain concentration, the kidneys are overtaxed in their function. In this case one speaks of a renal threshold.

This so-called kidney threshold is approximately a concentration of 200 mg/dl glucose in the blood. If the blood sugar concentration is higher than the renal threshold, sugar is excreted in the urine.This is often the case with diabetes mellitus. Therefore, the typical signs observed are increased urinary excretion (polyuria) and sugar excretion with the urine (glucosuria).

Therefore, the urine “tastes” sweet. This is where the name of the disease comes from: diabetes means “to flow through” in Greek and mellitus means “honey-sweet” in Latin. Together this means honey-sweet urine. It could be that you have diabetes mellitus.