The leakage of Plasma Protein in urine is technically termed as “Proteinuria” (pronounced as pro-teen-you-reah). These proteins are NOT the usual nutrient that you obtain from food. These are a different class of Proteins specially made by your Liver.
Plasma Proteins normally circulate in your bloodstream & help with a range of functions essential to keep you alive. Urine samples with Protein tend to be visibly foamy / frothy akin to the kind that you get after dissolving detergents in water. The extent of foam will certainly vary with the extent of protein leakage.
Normally, Urine produced by healthy kidneys is a cocktail of toxic waste products of cellular metabolism, a host of minerals, salts, smelly organic compounds & excess water. (Find the complete normal urine composition here). These components begin to get together to form Urine once healthy kidney micro-filters “strain” our blood through themselves. These micro-filters are uber-selective with what they “let-out” into the urine. This is such that, all blood cells & “plasma” proteins remain in the bloodstream while the wastes & excesses purge themselves out.
But what makes these Kidney Micro-filters that selective against leakage of blood cells & protein in urine?
Haematuria (Red blood cells in urine) is not a disease in itself. It is a “sign” that points to an abnormality within your body.
The treatment approach towards haematuria would require a confirmed diagnosis of the underlying cause and adopting relevant medical and/or corrective surgical approaches. Whether it can be resolved completely or not would entirely depend on its root cause.
Haematuria is the technical term for the presence of red blood cells (RBCs) in urine. This could range from minute quantities such that it is invisible to the naked eye (occult or hidden bleeding), to frank hematuria such that the urine assumes a reddish tinge to a cola-coloured appearance.
Red blood cells abundantly present in our bloodstream happen to carry a pigment called “Haemoglobin” within them. This is what gives our blood, a red colour and lends that reddish tinge to most urine samples that have blood in it.
Please note: For Haematuria, the urine sample must contain whole red blood cells and not just the red pigment of blood.
In good health, how yellow your urine appears directly relates to your water/liquid intake. The more dehydrated you are, the denser & more concentrated your urine is, and the darker is the yellow colour as depicted in the image below.
Normal variation in Urine Colour in good health. Healthy urine samples are transparent and vary from a pale or straw yellow to a dark yellow shade.
Samples in the image above aptly show the normal variation in Urine Colour in good health. For all practical diagnostic purposes, this urine colour range qualifies as normal. Now, Urine is not a topic that would usually make the cut in any polite conversation in non-specialist social gatherings.
Every time you deposit your Urine sample at the hospital lab, you need to wait for (usually) a few hours before collecting the Urinalysis Report.
Wondering what is it that takes the lab people that long or what they might be looking at, before commenting on your health status in their Report? It’s just Urine after all, right?! Continue reading “Urinalysis: Decoding the Report”→
In a routine Urinalysis, the Physico-chemical examination comprises analysis of properties that help to define how a Urine Sample appears to the naked eye.
These include the following:
1. COLOUR
Normal Urine is typically Pale/Straw yellow to Dark yellow in Colour due to the presence of pigment Urochrome.
Normal Colour Range for Human Urine (Image Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2981209/What-PEE-says-health-clear-stream-means-drinking-coffee-red-urine-signal-cancer.html )