Does your pee smell funny Does Asparagus Make Your Pee Smell?
However, you're also not alone if this doesn't happen to you. But why?
New research from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, published Tuesday in the BMJ, helps uncover some of the mystery.
The researchers posed that question to 6,909 men
and women involved in long-term studies – all with European-American
ancestry – and discovered that 58 percent of men and 62 percent of women
couldn't smell the ensuing odor. This odor comes from urinary
metabolites that are made after someone eats asparagus.
"It's amazing that for something that tastes so
good like asparagus, the resulting odor is so horrible," Lorelei Mucci, a
senior study author, told NPR. "What's fascinating about it is it happens very quickly. When it does happen, it is so strong. It's unbelievable."
The researchers then linked this data to a
genome study examining 9 million genetic variants in the participants.
Of these genetic variants, 871 were associated with the inability to
smell asparagus pee.
The discovery of these variants will help scientists working to figure
out the genetic underpinnings of smell, according to researchers.
Of course, this is hardly the first study that
has examined this phenomenon – nor is the can-you-smell-it question the
only query at hand.
"Two big genetic studies have only come up with
markers near olfactory receptors," Marcia Pelchat, a food scientist at
Monell Chemical Senses Center, told NPR. "That strongly suggests it's
probably [that] everybody produces it but not everybody detects it."
Pelchat did not work on the study.
Whatever the case, be prepared the next time you eat asparagus and then visit the restroom.
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