Hippuric acid, one of the most abundant organic metabolites in human urineFLICKR, SARAH OROS
Everything you ever wanted to know about the chemical makeup of human urine is now freely accessible in an online database, thanks to a team of researchers who are cataloguing their way through the complex metabolic compositions of bodily fluids. Studying the metabolome—or the sum of all metabolites in a biological sample—can reveal a wealth of information about how environmental factors affect human health. So far, the team has inventoried the metabolites found in blood serum, saliva, cerebrospinal fluid, and now, as reported in PLOS ONE this week (September 4), urine.
Urine does far more than eliminate water-soluble waste from our bodies. “While largely viewed as a waste product, urine has considerable value as a diagnostic biofluid,” the study’s authors write. Humans have leveraged that ...
