Asparagus Pee: Ever Notice that This Green Veggie Makes Your Urine Smell?

The above was excerpted from Swann's Way by Marcel Proust.
And he was talking about his pee.

And asparagus.

If you read my previous article, A Hypothetical You and the Dreaded Asparagus: A Very Unfortunate Affair you might be curious as to why the hypothetical you protagonist resented asparagus so much and why he felt it was this particular green vegetable that was responsible for ruining a past romantic relationship. Or maybe you figured out the mystery, no problem.

Maybe because you, too, know.

If an inkling of my last article struck a bell with you or if reading this follow up seems to make a little more sense, it is likely you can somewhat relate to what the character in A Hypothetical You and the Dreaded Asparagus which was hypothetically yourself, of course, was going through. The dilemma of should I take a chance and eat the asparagus at the business dinner or pass.

Now granted, while it is fully acknowledged that my piece on your affair with the dreaded asparagus plant was wildly exaggerated and it is doubtful someone would break up with you over the results of your interactions with asparagus, it is actually a very true fact that such interactions can cause a rather unappealing (and depending on the individual, potentially embarrassing) effect.

This effect occurs after one eats the asparagus and presents itself while he or she is using the restroom. Since your hypothetical date in the hypothetical story entered the tiny Thai restaurant's single co-ed lavatory immediately after you exited, it is reasonable to assume she noticed a very foul smell. And naturally, since again, you having been the last one in there, she pinned that stench promptly onto you...

The fact of the matter is that asparagus has an uncanny tendency to make your pee smell bad. The odor is apparently derived from the same chemical as that of a skunk's emission. It has been found by biochemists and other researchers that the asparagus urine smell is the result of the breakdown of sulfur-containing amino acids which are contained in the green veggie and that when digested, and excreted via urination, emit a smell that is quite noticeably foul. Scientists believe specifically, the 6 sulfur containing compounds that the amino acids from asparagus divide and break down into belong to a group of chemicals known as Mercaptan and that a combination of all of them is to blame for the stench.

There has been quite a history of research performed related to asparagus and urine smell. The fascination, however, does not necessarily root itself in the reasons why asparagus makes your pee reek. That, as mentioned, the experts have pretty much determined.

There does happen to exist, however, another phenomenon that comes along with the asparagus vegetable that seems to have even the most ambitious scientists baffled.

That is, the fact that only about 50% of the population is able to honestly report the witnessing of a post digestion asparagus pee smell urination event.

The theories surrounding this curiosity are conflicting, more or less split in half one way or the other. Some of the experts are convinced that the 50% statistic indicates that only half the population experience this distinguishable urine smell to begin with after eating asparagus.

The flip side believes there is more to it than that. Scientists for the opposing argument suggest, instead, that every human being does in fact excrete a noxiously smelly urine post asparagus digestion. Their explanation for the huge lack of individuals reporting it is that only about 1/3 of the population is able to smell the sulfuric odor. Scientists of this persuasion assert that certain autosomal genes (chromosomes) are required to be able to pick up on the asparagus urine smell olfactorily and for some odd reason it was only this rather (un)lucky third of us who were blessed with them.

It is universally agreed upon though that those who do notice a change in their urine smell will happen upon the discovery approximately 15-30 following digestion of the skunk-y green plant.

It is also unanimously agreed upon, at least from the research thus far conducted, that an asparagus smell in urine is no reason to be alarmed. It does not imply any greater significance or problem in your body, it's just plain and simply something that happens.

Asparagus and urine.
Weird.

Sources:

http://www.boston.com/globe/search/stories/health/how_and_why/060694.htm

http://www.drdaveanddee.com/asparagus.html

http://www.boston.com/globe/search/stories/health/how_and_why/060694.htm

http://www.healthline.com/blogs/diet_nutrition/2007/09/asparagus-urine.html

http://www.healthdiaries.com/eatthis/asparagus-and-urine-odor-what-causes-it.html