Headline, March26, 2013

'''BRACE YOURSELF: 

For The Medical Science on Urine!'''

Many people find the pleasure of eating asparagus is marred by an intensely disagreeable smell. -similar to that of rotten cabbage, that it produces in the urine a few hours later. Some deny they can smell anything at all, which has usually been attributed to their inability to detect certain strong aromas.

A recent experiment has shown the reverse to be the case: they can't smell the odour because it is not there. Doctors at St Mary's Hospital, London, persuaded 21 people to eat a mound of asparagus, then presented samples of their urine to an independent panel of sniffers, who  quiet clearly discriminated between odorous and non-odorous specimens. The reason would seem to lie the way people metabolise their asparagus. Thus, the end product that produces the rotten cabbage smell, identified by biochemists in Birmingham as a combination of six sulphur-contaning alkyl compounds, is found in the urine of some people but not others.

Marginal though fascinating as this discovery might be, the smell of urine has considerable medical significance. Indeed, there are a whole series of conditions caused by metabolic abnormalities that are named after the smell they produce. For example, there is Maple Syrup Urine Disease, Odour of sweaty feet Syndrome, Cat's Urine Syndrome, Dead Fish Odour Syndrome, Rancid Butter Syndrome and  Oast House Urine Disease. THEY ARE ALMOST ALL FATAL.

Compared to smell, the colour of urine is far less informative. If red, it probably indicates bleeding from a kidney stone or pathological conditions of the bladder. Dark yellow urine can be due to bile, as found in the presence of jaundice, or maybe caused by dehydration. There is an unusual syndrome of milky white urine where the lymphatic system drains into the bladder. Blue and green urine is almost invariably caused by substances found in proprietary preparations sold by chemists: chlorophyll, contained un breath mints; gualacol, a common ingredient of cough remedies and thymol, used in gargle listerine.

Medieval physicians, however, took urine color much more seriously and constructed a complex system of diagnosis based simply on the art of observing a patient's urine in a flask  -the science of Uroscopy. Texts claimed ''Orangish urine' indicates a multitude of corrupt tumors as happens in phlegmatic dropsy and gout. Transparent urine like the cornea indicates an irregularity of the spleen. and much else besides.

So, brace up to your urine and catch the symptoms early. Your life is precious and vigilance on urine, really pays.

With most respectful and loving memory of my great Father Dr Mohammed Akber Khan Hashmi Querishi who spent his every living moment in the service of the poor and the down trodden and the miserables.

He was the first amongst doctors to serve in Wazirstan and the entire tribal belt.

I hope I have been worthy of his legacy and the power of his examples!

Good Night & God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless