YOUR urine could give away a lot more about you than what you鈥檝e been eating and drinking.
A team at Imperial College London has found new ways to monitor human metabolism after screening urine from 4000 people from the UK, US, China and Japan, in the largest analysis of its kind. Using a technique called nuclear magnetic resonance they identified metabolites in the urine 鈥� the compounds left over after food is assimilated 鈥� and showed specific metabolites are linked to certain ethnic groups, nationalities, genders and diseases.
鈥淪pecific metabolites were linked to certain ethnic groups, genders and diseases鈥�
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The team also found four molecules that correlate with high blood pressure (Nature, ). 鈥淣o one has ever found a urinary marker for high blood pressure, because no one could look on this scale before,鈥� says Jeremy Nicholson, who led the research. One of these molecules is formate, which suggests that a kidney ion pump is involved. If this is confirmed it could lead to treatments for high blood pressure, he says.
Other groups plan to use similar large-scale techniques to identify markers for a range of diseases.
