Beeturia, the passage of pink urine after beetroot consumption, is a reminder that phytonutrients circulate throughout our bloodstream—explaining the connection between “garlic breath,” and the use of garlic as an adjunct treatment for pneumonia.
Pretty in Pee-nk
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Beeturia, pink pee after beet consumption, is totally harmless—you’re just peeing out some of the pigment. But it can be used to remind us of an important fact. When we eat plant foods, many of these wonderful antioxidant pigments—lycopene, beta carotene—the phytonutrients are actually absorbed into our bloodstream, and bathe the organs, tissues, and cells of our bodies.
There’s no direct connection between our gut and our bladder, right? The only way those beet pigments are finding their way into our urine is by being absorbed through our gut, into our bloodstream, and circulating throughout our entire body, before being eventually filtered out by the kidneys. Our blood for a time is a little pinker too!
When we have garlic breath, it’s not just garlic residue in our mouths. It’s the fact that those wonderful health-promoting garlic compounds got absorbed into our bloodstream, and are actually being excreted straight out of our lungs. If we just had a garlic enema, we’d still get garlic breath.
So when you see studies investigating the antibacterial effects of garlic, and you’re thinking who cares what garlic does in a petri dish,outside the body, that’s why we care—because it does circulate throughout our body. That’s why garlic has been found useful as an adjunct treatment for pneumonia in critical cases. It’s excreted by our lungs to get that garlic breath, and can wipe out bacteria on the way out.
Other than pink pee and red stools, which gives a whole new meaning to the term toilet bowl flushing, any other side-effects to beet consumption? One more.
Should you get run over while you’re out biking on beets, on autopsy, you might amuse your pathologist. “The case of the purple colon: Purple discoloration of the large bowel related to… beetroot ingestion…”
To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by MaryAnn Allison.
Please consider volunteering to help out on the site.
- Lu X, Rasco BA, Jabal JM, Aston DE, Lin M, Konkel ME. Investigating antibacterial effects of garlic (Allium sativum) concentrate and garlic-derived organosulfur compounds on Campylobacter jejuni by using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and electron microscopy. Appl Environ Microbiol. 2011 Aug;77(15):5257-69. Epub 2011 Jun 3.
- Watts AR, Lennard MS, Mason SL, Tucker GT, Woods HF. Beeturia and the biological fate of beetroot pigments. Pharmacogenetics. 1993 Dec;3(6):302-11.
- Yalindag-Ozturk N, Ozdamar M, Cengiz P. Trial of garlic as an adjunct therapy for multidrug resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa pneumonia in a critically ill infant. J Altern Complement Med. 2011 Apr;17(4):379-80. Epub 2011 Apr 11.
- Cserni G, Kocsis L. The case of the purple colon. Virchows Arch. 2008 Jun;452(6):703. Epub 2008 Apr 19.
- Bailey SJ, Fulford J, Vanhatalo A, Winyard PG, Blackwell JR, DiMenna FJ, Wilkerson DP, Benjamin N, Jones AM. Dietary nitrate supplementation enhances muscle contractile efficiency during knee-extensor exercise in humans. J Appl Physiol. 2010 Jul;109(1):135-48. Epub 2010 May 13.
Images thanks to Chinese University of Hong Kong, http://lynlaukimdak.wikispaces.com/ and JJ Harrison via wikimedia. Images have been modified.
Beeturia, pink pee after beet consumption, is totally harmless—you’re just peeing out some of the pigment. But it can be used to remind us of an important fact. When we eat plant foods, many of these wonderful antioxidant pigments—lycopene, beta carotene—the phytonutrients are actually absorbed into our bloodstream, and bathe the organs, tissues, and cells of our bodies.
There’s no direct connection between our gut and our bladder, right? The only way those beet pigments are finding their way into our urine is by being absorbed through our gut, into our bloodstream, and circulating throughout our entire body, before being eventually filtered out by the kidneys. Our blood for a time is a little pinker too!
When we have garlic breath, it’s not just garlic residue in our mouths. It’s the fact that those wonderful health-promoting garlic compounds got absorbed into our bloodstream, and are actually being excreted straight out of our lungs. If we just had a garlic enema, we’d still get garlic breath.
So when you see studies investigating the antibacterial effects of garlic, and you’re thinking who cares what garlic does in a petri dish,outside the body, that’s why we care—because it does circulate throughout our body. That’s why garlic has been found useful as an adjunct treatment for pneumonia in critical cases. It’s excreted by our lungs to get that garlic breath, and can wipe out bacteria on the way out.
Other than pink pee and red stools, which gives a whole new meaning to the term toilet bowl flushing, any other side-effects to beet consumption? One more.
Should you get run over while you’re out biking on beets, on autopsy, you might amuse your pathologist. “The case of the purple colon: Purple discoloration of the large bowel related to… beetroot ingestion…”
To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by MaryAnn Allison.
Please consider volunteering to help out on the site.
- Lu X, Rasco BA, Jabal JM, Aston DE, Lin M, Konkel ME. Investigating antibacterial effects of garlic (Allium sativum) concentrate and garlic-derived organosulfur compounds on Campylobacter jejuni by using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and electron microscopy. Appl Environ Microbiol. 2011 Aug;77(15):5257-69. Epub 2011 Jun 3.
- Watts AR, Lennard MS, Mason SL, Tucker GT, Woods HF. Beeturia and the biological fate of beetroot pigments. Pharmacogenetics. 1993 Dec;3(6):302-11.
- Yalindag-Ozturk N, Ozdamar M, Cengiz P. Trial of garlic as an adjunct therapy for multidrug resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa pneumonia in a critically ill infant. J Altern Complement Med. 2011 Apr;17(4):379-80. Epub 2011 Apr 11.
- Cserni G, Kocsis L. The case of the purple colon. Virchows Arch. 2008 Jun;452(6):703. Epub 2008 Apr 19.
- Bailey SJ, Fulford J, Vanhatalo A, Winyard PG, Blackwell JR, DiMenna FJ, Wilkerson DP, Benjamin N, Jones AM. Dietary nitrate supplementation enhances muscle contractile efficiency during knee-extensor exercise in humans. J Appl Physiol. 2010 Jul;109(1):135-48. Epub 2010 May 13.
Images thanks to Chinese University of Hong Kong, http://lynlaukimdak.wikispaces.com/ and JJ Harrison via wikimedia. Images have been modified.
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Title
Pretty in Pee-nk
LicenseCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Content URLDoctor's Note
This is a follow-up to my Asparagus Pee video, a tangent in my series about the athletic performance-enhancing effects of vegetables that began with Doping with Beet Juice. For more on the wonders of garlic, check out Veggies vs. Cancer.
And that’s just one of more than two thousand topics I cover in videos here at NutritionFacts.org—an all-free, no-ads, and evidence-based (see links to all the papers in the Sources Cited section above) resource for all.
For further context, check out my associated blog posts: Using Greens to Improve Athletic Performance, and Treating an Enlarged Prostate With Diet.
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