It’s summer-time and my family is enjoying the fruits (or vegetables) of living in an agricultural community. One of those advantages is the availablilty of fresh picked asparagus.

In medical school, someone asked why our urine smells so differently when we consume asparagus. I was surprised that only about half of the class agreed. Studies have demonstrated that EVERYONE’S urine smells due to the by-products of asparagus as it’s digested and excreted in the urine, but only HALF OF US actually smell it. Apparently, its our noses that are different, not the urine output.

I had a patient that came to me and said that he thought he was dying. His urine smelled “like horse piss.” I went through the motions of collecting his urine, doing a few lab tests, and looking at it under the microscope to verify that he was okay, but I knew all along what his real problem probably was.

Sure enough, a friend had given him “a whole box” of freshly cut asparagus and he was eating it every night for dinner. CSI case closed.