After seven years of research, researchers at the University of Alberta (USA) have just calculated that there are more than 3,000 different chemicals or metabolites in urine . "Urine is an extremely complex biofluid," says David Wishart, a co-author of the work, who has used analytical chemistry techniques, including nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, msas spectrometry, and liquid chromatography to identify and quantify all kinds of compounds in the urine. liquid that we expel during urination. In addition to analyzing data from 100 years of scientific literature on human urine.
The chemical inventory created is freely accessible and is available through the Urine Metabolome Database (UMDB) on the website http://www.urinemetabolome.ca/. Scientists will find chemical names, descriptions, structures, common concentrations, and information on diseases associated with each substance.
The chemical composition of urine is of special interest to physicians, nutritionists and environmental scientists, since in addition to providing information on a person's health, it indicates what they have eaten and drunk, whether they have used drugs and what environmental pollutants they have been exposed to . Not surprisingly, the analysis of the color, smell and even taste of urine was one of the first methods used by doctors in the 18th century to diagnose diseases.
