The reason why doctors order urinalysis is to check your urine for signs of infection, diabetes and other medical conditions. By looking at the results of your urinalysis test, your doctor can determine if there are any health problems that need treatment or further tests that should be done. When you take a sample for a urinalysis test, it goes through three different types of tests: physical characteristics, chemical composition and microscopic examination.
A urinalysis is a test that checks the urine for abnormalities. Urine is a waste product made by your kidneys, which remove excess fluids from your body and filter out waste products from the blood. The amount of water in your urine can tell you how well you're hydrated, as well as whether or not you have an infection or kidney disease. Urinalysis also looks for blood in the urine, which would indicate a urinary tract infection (UTI).
The purpose of urinalysis is to check for any abnormal substances in your urine and provide information about how well your body is functioning overall.
Urine samples must be clear, odorless, colorless and uncontaminated.
The results of your urinalysis are broken down into three categories: physical characteristics, chemical composition and microscopic examination.
Physical Characteristics
Physical characteristics refer to the visible properties of urine. For example, it's possible to determine how much sediment (or particulate matter) is present in your urine by looking at a sample under a microscope. This can be helpful if your doctor suspects you have a urinary tract infection (UTI). Any strange or unusual characteristics that appear on the slide during magnification may indicate an infection.
Your urinalysis should include results for the following physical characteristics of your urine sample:
The physical characteristics of urine, such as clarity and color, are important to observe. The urine sample should be clear or pale yellow if no abnormalities are present. If the sample is cloudy or has a strong odor, it may indicate an infection or other condition.
The color of your urine is influenced by the food you eat, medications you take and other factors. For example, the presence of red beets in your diet will likely cause a change in the hue of your urine. The color can also range from clear to dark yellow or brown.
In general, normal urine samples will be light to dark yellow in color—unless you've been eating a lot of beets! While it's true that certain foods and medications can affect the appearance of your pee (and even give it an unnatural hue), this is not necessarily an indication of health problems.
A normal urine sample should have no odor or a slightly fruity odor. Normal urine samples that smell like an apple, onion or other foods are often caused by food you ate. If you've recently had asparagus or beets and your urine smells like those foods, this could be the cause of the unusual smell in your urine sample.
Urinary tract infections (UTIs) can also cause urine to take on a fruity scent, so if you experience this symptom along with others associated with a UTI such as fever, chills and abdominal pain then it's important to get treated right away.
When you urinate into a container, the liquid will be clear. That's because the kidneys have filtered out any large particles from your urine and there's no sediment in it. Sediment is only present when there are small particles of protein or cells that have been left behind after your urine has been filtered through your kidneys.
If you'd like to see if there is sediment in your urine, pour some fresh urine into a clear glass jar and let it sit overnight at room temperature. By morning, you should be able to see any sediment at the bottom of the jar with just a quick glance—no microscope needed!
The second category of urinalysis results tells you the chemical composition of the sample.
This includes: protein, sugar/glucose, ketones and bilirubin.
Protein is the most common chemical test used by doctors to determine if an individual has kidney disease or some other condition affecting their urine. It is also a waste product from your body that can be found in urine samples after eating meat or drinking milk. Blood in urine can indicate urinary tract infection (UTI), kidney stones, diabetes and other diseases such as liver problems or bladder cancer; however it may not always mean something serious is wrong with your health if you do see blood during urinalysis tests for some reason which may vary depending on age group!
You may have heard about other tests that can be done on your urine. Below, we'll discuss the most common ones:
The third category for urinalysis results is for microscopic examination of your sample. This is the most important aspect of an urinalysis test, as it can determine if you have an infection that requires treatment. Microscopic examination looks for bacteria, red blood cells and white blood cells in your urine sample. Normal results are expected to be negative for all three of these.
The three categories of urinalysis results are:
As you can see, the results of a urinalysis are broken down into three different categories. The first category is physical characteristics, which includes clarity, appearance and odor of the urine sample. The second category of urinalysis results tells you the chemical composition of the sample. Tests in this category include protein, sugar, ketones, blood and bilirubin. The third category for urinalysis results is for microscopic examination of your sample.