What Is Urinalysis?

It’s some­thing you’ve been doing for as long as you can remem­ber: pee­ing into a cup to give your provider a urine sample. 

A urine sam­ple is often used for a uri­nal­y­sis – a test on your urine that can help your provider man­age and detect health con­di­tions and dis­or­ders like uri­nary tract infec­tions, dia­betes, and kid­ney disease. 

While the ​“grab cup, pee, give it back” process might be sec­ond nature at this point, have you ever thought about exact­ly why you’re doing it? And what the results might mean? 

Here are 6 things to know about urinalysis. 

1. There are many rea­sons why you might need a urinalysis. 

Many times, a uri­nal­y­sis is done to mon­i­tor your over­all health. It’s often a rou­tine part of your year­ly phys­i­cal as a way to screen for ear­ly signs of a med­ical problem. 

Also read: Are You Behind on Your Reg­u­lar Health Screen­ings?

Your provider may also order a uri­nal­y­sis if you: 

• Have symp­toms of a health con­di­tion like dia­betes or kid­ney disease 
• Need mon­i­tor­ing for a con­di­tion like dia­betes or kid­ney dis­ease that you’re already being treat­ed for 
• Have a preg­nan­cy or presur­gi­cal check-up 
• Have been admit­ted to the hospital 
• Show symp­toms of a uri­nary tract infection 

Also read: Get Treat­ment for Your Uri­nary Tract Infec­tion ASAP

2. There’s actu­al­ly a ​“right” way to pee into a cup. 

Giv­ing a urine sam­ple in a cup isn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly as straight­for­ward as it sounds. 

If you don’t col­lect your urine cor­rect­ly, it can become con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed with germs from your gen­i­tals and throw off your test results. That’s why urine needs to be col­lect­ed with the ​“clean catch” method. 

The clean catch method is a mul­ti-step process. 

• Wash your hands with soap and warm water. 
• Clean your labia or penis with a ster­ile wipe. 
• Uri­nate just a small amount into the toilet. 
• Stop your­self from urinating. 
• Uri­nate into the cup, until it is about half full. 
• Fin­ish uri­nat­ing into the toilet. 
• Wash your hands again. 

If you’re col­lect­ing the sam­ple at home, put the cup in a plas­tic bag and refrig­er­ate it until you take it to the lab. Leav­ing urine at room tem­per­a­ture can cause bac­te­ria to grow and con­t­a­m­i­nate the sample. 

3. A lab tech­ni­cian can tell a lot about your health from just see­ing your urine. 

There are three ways in which lab tech­ni­cians test your urine: visu­al­ly, with a dip­stick, and under a micro­scope. For the visu­al exam, they look at your urine with the naked eye. 

In gen­er­al, your urine should be clear or a light shade of yel­low if you’re healthy and hydrat­ed. A dark­er yel­low or even anoth­er col­or can some­times be the result of eat­ing cer­tain foods and tak­ing cer­tain med­ica­tions. For instance, eat­ing beets can turn your urine red, and tak­ing con­sti­pa­tion med­ica­tions can turn your urine orange. How­ev­er, dif­fer­ent col­ors of urine can also be a sign of a seri­ous health con­di­tion. Liv­er or kid­ney dis­or­ders can make your urine dark brown, and some uri­nary tract infec­tions can make urine green. 

The lab tech­ni­cian will also look at whether your urine is clear or cloudy. Like dif­fer­ent-col­ored urine, cloudy urine can some­times be harm­less but could also indi­cate a health concern. 

If your provider has ordered a uri­nal­y­sis, come to a Duly Health and Care lab­o­ra­to­ry. Lab ser­vices are walk-in only. If you think you might need a uri­nal­y­sis, sched­ule an appoint­ment with a Duly Health and Care pri­ma­ry care provider.

4. The sub­stances in your urine also paint a pic­ture of your health. 

Anoth­er way your urine is eval­u­at­ed is with a chem­i­cal test (“dip­stick test”). Dip­sticks are plas­tic test sticks that have pads of chem­i­cals on them. The sticks are placed in urine and the chem­i­cal pads change col­or when they detect cer­tain sub­stances that shouldn’t be there or when the lev­el of a sub­stance nor­mal­ly found in your urine is too high. 

Some of the com­mon sub­stances that dip­sticks test for, and what the results could pos­si­bly indi­cate, are: 

• Acid­i­ty (pH level) 
  • Too much: a kid­ney or uri­nary tract disorder 
  • Too lit­tle: diar­rhea or dia­betes-relat­ed ketoacidosis 
• Pro­tein
  • Too much: kid­ney issues, heart fail­ure, or dehydration 
• Ketones (acids that your body pro­duces when it gets ener­gy from break­ing down fats rather than glucose) 
  • Any amount: dia­betes or dia­betes-relat­ed ketoacidosis 
• Sug­ar (glu­cose)
  • Any amount: dia­betes or ges­ta­tion­al diabetes 
• Con­cen­tra­tion (also called ​“urine-spe­cif­ic grav­i­ty test”) 
  • Too high of a con­cen­tra­tion of par­ti­cles in your urine: not drink­ing enough fluids 
• Biliru­bin (a pig­ment found in the liq­uid that your liv­er produces) 
  • Any amount: liv­er dam­age or disease 
• Evi­dence of infection 
  • Any amount of nitrites or leuko­cyte esterase (an enzyme in white blood cells): uri­nary tract infection 
• Blood 
  • Any amount (oth­er than men­stru­al blood): infec­tion, kid­ney or blad­der stones, kid­ney dam­age, blood dis­or­ders, or kid­ney or blad­der cancer 

5. There’s more to your urine than meets the eye (and dipstick). 

The final type of test in a uri­nal­y­sis is the micro­scop­ic exam. This involves look­ing at a sam­ple of your urine under a micro­scope for evi­dence of tiny substances. 

A micro­scop­ic exam looks for: 

• High lev­els of red blood cells, which could indi­cate uri­nary tract, kid­ney, or blad­der problems 
• High lev­els of white blood cells, which could sig­nal infec­tion or inflam­ma­tion in your uri­nary tract 
• Bac­te­ria, par­a­sites, or yeast, which could be signs of an infection 
• Casts, which are tube-shaped pro­teins that can occur if you have a kid­ney disorder 
• Crys­tals, which are formed from chem­i­cals in your urine and could indi­cate kid­ney stones 

6. Urine tests reveal a lot – but they don’t always tell the whole story. 

A uri­nal­y­sis is a great way for your provider to see poten­tial health issues, mon­i­tor an exist­ing health con­di­tion, and keep an eye on your over­all health. How­ev­er, urine tests often pro­vide clues more than they pro­vide answers. 

Abnor­mal test results could be due to things like your diet, the med­ica­tions you take, or a con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed sam­ple and might not mean that any­thing is wrong. On the oth­er hand, it’s pos­si­ble to have a nor­mal urine test but still have an ill­ness that the test didn’t detect. 

In many cas­es, you will need addi­tion­al fol­low-up tests if you have an abnor­mal uri­nal­y­sis to con­firm that there is a prob­lem and to deter­mine why it’s happening. 

If you get an abnor­mal test, it’s impor­tant to fol­low up with your provider – but it’s also impor­tant for your own men­tal health to stay calm. An abnor­mal test doesn’t always mean that there’s some­thing wrong. And if there is cause for con­cern, find­ing it is the first step toward get­ting the care you need. 

Also read: Blood Work Basics: What to Know About Your Test

Inter­est­ed in work­ing in a Duly Health and Care lab­o­ra­to­ry? Check out our cur­rent job open­ings.