12 Things Your Urine Says About Your Health (Test At Home)

Urine has been used to assess health since Ancient Egypt (fun fact: because of Egyptian language having multiple sounds that get transliterated to “a” in English, the condition of passing blood in one’s urine was known as “Aaaaa” ← this word has three syllables; “Aa-a-aa”).

Modern techniques are more advanced than those of times past (for example, diabetes is no longer diagnosed by a urine taste-test), but basic urine inspection is still a very useful indicator of many things. Recognizing changes in urine can even help detect life-threatening conditions early:

Traffic lights?

How urine works: water that we consume is absorbed into the bloodstream and filtered by the kidneys. Urine is essentially blood with actual the blood cells filtered out and/or broken down. The yellow color comes from urochrome, produced during red blood cell breakdown. Here’s how things can happen a little differently:

1. Fluorescent yellow: caused by excess vitamin B2 from supplements; harmless.
2. Red urine: can indicate blood (bladder cancer, UTIs), hemoglobin, or myoglobin; seek medical attention.
3. Dark brown/tea-colored urine: may result from muscle damage or blood cell destruction; requires evaluation.
4. Orange urine: caused by dehydration, medications, or liver/bile duct issues (if paired with pale stools).
5. Purple urine: UTI bacteria produce pigments that can cause this; treatable with antibiotics.
6. Green urine: rare; caused by medications or dyes like methylene blue.
7. Frothy/foamy urine: indicates high protein levels, often from kidney damage (e.g. per diabetes and/or hypertension).
8. Crystal-clear urine: suggests overhydration, which can dangerously lower sodium levels.
9. Dark yellow/amber urine: may mean dehydration; drink more water to maintain a light yellow color.
10. Not peeing enough: may indicate severe dehydration or kidney failure; urgent medical attention needed.
11. Peeing too much: often linked to diabetes or excessive water intake; can lead to dehydration or low sodium.
12. Color-changing urine: port wine color signals porphyria; black urine indicates alkaptonuria (oxidation of homogentisic acid). Both are serious.

Bonus: if you eat a lot of beetroot and then your urine is pink/red/purple, that’s probably just the pigments passing through. If it persists though, then of course, see above.

For more on each of these, enjoy:

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You might also like to read:

Why You Don’t Need 8 Glasses Of Water Per Day

Take care!