Causes of dark urine

Yellow and amber should be the normal color for someone’s urine. However there are many reasons why the color of your urine changes to a darker one.

What is Urine

Urine is made up of water and water soluble waste compounds and comes in the form of a liquid. The kidney is the chief organ in excretory process which has the task of filtering the blood in the body to take out any of the water soluble products. The water and the soluble products are then flushed out through the urethra. This procedure is called micturition. The main components in the excretory system are the kidneys, the urinary bladder and the urethra. The kidneys job as mentioned before is to filter the blood. The urinary bladder is what holds the urine and then the urethra expels the urine from the body. The materials in the urine are the urea, uric acid, creatinine, hormones, enzymes and mineral salts. So when the urine is expelled it will be a little bit acidic in nature.Causes of Having a Dark Yellow Urine

By checking the color of your urine you can see what sort of health you are in. There are quite a few reasons as to why the color of your urine changes. For example it can be due to inadequate fluid intake to a serious disease. However the main cause of dark colored urine is dehydration, which means you are not taking in enough water into your system. The dark urine color is from a high concentration of the waste materials rather than water. If you are dehydrated you may even smell a stronger odor in your urine because of the nitrogenous waste products. Some foods and some drugs can cause you to suffer with brown urine. A good example of this is asparagus which will make your urine look a lot darker and if you eat a lot of blackberries and/or rhubarb then you may see a more reddish color to your urine.Drugs that Cause Discolored Urine

As far as drugs are concerned, things like B complex vitamins can cause a discoloration in the urine. The C vitamin can cause you to see a bright yellow color in your urine. If you have kidney or liver diseases then this will inevitably cause you to have a darker color to your urine. Jaundice is one of the more widespread conditions that cause dark colored urine.