From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: sci.med.nutrition
Subject: Re: Food Smell in Urine
Date: 15 Apr 1998 22:12:16 GMT

In <01bd68ab$6c839160$4611a2d1@home-pc> "BIRDIE" <well@thegrid.net>
writes:

>i notice that after i eat asparagus there is a definite odor in my
urine and when i ask others about it they don't have the
odor......anybody have an explanation about this?<

    They have it, but they don't notice.   The ability to smell the
asparagus odor in urine is genetically controlled (no kidding) on a
simple Mendelian basis.  Something like 50% of people can smell it, and
the rest can't.  It's something like the ability to taste the sourness
of PTU, if you did that experiment in school (no relation between these
traits, so far as I know).

                                    Steve Harris, M.D.