Frothy urine is generally caused by excessive fat and protein that ends up in the urine as a symptom of nephritic syndrome. The hydration levels of our body have little to do with it, and most normal or balanced diets won’t change the consistency and color of urine.
If you are suffering from frothy urine, then you must consult a doctor, as there are some possible underlying conditions that cause the nephritic syndrome in your body, and a few of these conditions are actually serious concerns. These causes all affect the kidneys, which are the organs that should not usually allow substantial and even excessive amounts of protein into the urine. When the kidneys get damaged, they would sometimes have abnormal functions, hence the reason why they sometimes allow proteins to get into the mix of your urine. Protein normally doesn’t flow through the bloodstream since the filtration holes found in the kidneys aren’t large enough to allow proteins to go through it, so it is only in situations where the kidneys are damaged that allow proteins to filter out.
The increased fat content in the urine caused by the nephritic syndrome is often the result of the body losing protein, and as such, it is trying to compensate for the loss of colloid osmotic pressure, which relies on having soluble protein, in the bloodstream by increasing the fat content on the blood. This process would then spill over into the urine.
Furthermore, there may be dietary additives and other chemicals that are disproportionately filtered out by the kidney, thus causing high protein content in the urine. If complications in the urine persist, it is wise to consult a doctor who would advise you to take a urine sample so that they can test your urine and check for excess protein and anything else that is not supposed to be in the mixture, like infection markers.
Why is urine usually yellow?
Most of the urine that we flush out in our body is yellow, but why is it that particular color when we didn’t even drink or eat anything yellow or orange? The yellowness of our urine is typically caused by the amount of urobilin that your kidney produces. Urobilin is a chemical that is water-soluble and is naturally yellow in color. The saturation levels of yellow in your urine also indicate how much water you consume before using the toilet. If your urine has a light-yellow color, it means that you are drinking a lot of water, and the kidney has more water in its system that urobilin. If your urine has a darker color that looks brown rather than yellow, this indicates that you don’t drink enough water, hence the reason why the urine has more urobilin. The brownish urine could also indicate that you are dehydrated.
How do the kidneys produce or filter urine?
The kidney’s function is to maintain the balance of water, chemicals, and salt in your body. If the body received excessive amounts of any of these elements, the kidneys are supposed to flush them out by producing urine. The kidneys would have filters that would sort out what to flush out and what to keep.
From the kidneys, most of the liquid wastes would be filtered out in those organs, and then it would be transported down to the thin pipes called ureters, which connect the kidneys to the bladder. Once the liquid waste is in the bladder, that organ would then send signals to your brains using special nerves connected to it, and the signal would be that the liquid waste needs to go out of your body. During this process, the human would already feel that he or she would need to pee.
What happens to the kidneys when you don’t drink enough water?
When you don’t get enough water, the chemicals and other wastes in your body will start to build up, and the kidneys won’t be able to take them out of your system. Water is essential for your kidneys, as the liquid is what the organs use to flush out wastes in the body. Without it, complications like kidney stones and urinary tract infections may occur, and these diseases would often cause minor to severe damage to your kidneys. Kidney stones often form when there are little to no water in your kidneys, and urinary tract infections happen when pathogens get stuck in either the ureters or the bladder since there is no water that can carry them out of the said organs.
It is important for us to take care of our kidneys, as it helps us eliminate almost all the harmful chemicals in our bodies, similar to what the liver does in the digestive system. In order for our kidneys to be healthy, we should always have a balanced diet, and we should also hydrate often by drinking enough water.