Why Do Supplements Cause Urine to Turn Neon Yellow?

We've likely all noticed that a day after eating a meal that included sugar beets, restroom breaks are A LOT more colorful. While at first the bright red color palette can be scary, triggering hypochondriac-inspired thoughts of everything from internal bleeding to all manner of other conditions, beets are not the only thing we consume that reveals itself through our toilet breaks.

The same can be true with multivitamin supplements, which often result in a bright yellow, almost neon-colored urine (This yellow is a bolder, brighter color than standard yellow urine, and you will know it when you see it!).

The first thing that might come to mind – after all the unnecessary thoughts of dire illness have been suppressed, of course – is that we’re flushing all the benefits of our vitamin regimen, ahem, down the toilet.

But that wouldn't be exactly true.

Fat-Soluble vs. Water-Soluble Vitamins and How they Affect Pee Color

There are two different kinds of vitamins – water soluble and fat soluble.

The fat-soluble vitamins (vitamins A, D, E and K) are stored in the liver if we consume more than our body can use at one time.

The water-soluble cousins, however – including vitamin B1 (thiamin), vitamin B2 (riboflavin), vitamin B3, vitamin B6, folate, vitamin B12, biotin, pantothenic acid (vitamin B5) and vitamin C - are flushed out of the body every day after the body absorbs what it needs.

Riboflavin is the one associated with that bright yellow urine. We get a clue about that distinctive yellow color from the name riboflavin itself, which is taken from the Latin word flavus, which means yellow or blonde.

Riboflavin was discovered in the 1800s, named in the 1930s, and is found in almost all multivitamin blends. It helps support physical growth as well as the production of red blood cells. It also helps turn the carbohydrates we eat into energy.

But riboflavin is not the only supplement ingredient to turn our bathroom breaks into psychedelic experiences. Too much vitamin C can lead to bright orange urine, brought on as the excess is excreted.

Poor Quality Supplements Can Result in More Yellow Urine

Cheap ‘supermarket’ supplements tend to be loaded with excessive quantities of low quality, often synthetic vitamins, while the expensive nutrients (that are often most needed by the body) are completely absent. In fact, these excessive amounts of cheap synthetic vitamins can actually end up becoming pro-oxidants, and they may do more harm than good.

Often the body cannot utilize a lot of the excessive low quality vitamins found in cheap supplement. As a result, they have to be flushed out of the system. The irony is that you’re also flushing away the money you spent on the supplement in the first place.

Cheap vs. Quality Supplements and Their Affect on Urine Color

A good example is vitamin C... most cheap supplements use Ascorbic acid. At Xtendlife, we use a combination of Calcium Ascorbate and Ascorbyl Palmitiate. These two forms of vitamin C are superior and more expensive than Ascorbic acid.

Another example is Riboflavin. Many people think that there is just one version of vitamin B2, know as riboflavin, and as a result, they think they’re getting the full benefits of this ingredient when they read the amount of it present in their recently purchased supplement. However, there is a far superior and more bio-available form of vitamin B2.

At Xtendlife, we use Riboflavin-5-phosphate, which is the form of vitamin B2 that your body can actually utilize it most effectively and consistently. Like the example of vitamin C mentioned earlier, your body does not have to deal with flushing out an overload of poor quality vitamins.

That means the yellow or orange urine that often results from taking poor quality supplements is a clear indication that your body is not utilizing the product’s ingredients as it should be. By taking superior quality supplements such as the Omega 3 Range and especially the Total Balance range from Xtendlife, your body (and wallet) will benefit from the maximum bio-availability of our synergistic high quality ingredients and significantly reduced waste during the digestion process, as the nutrients are fully absorbed. Our quality ingredients and state-of-the-art delivery systems ensure maximum bio-availability, efficacy and value for money.

The health low-down

Your yellow urine reveals one key thing. Your body has taken what it can from the vitamins that you took earlier in the day, and the rest cannot be used due to their excess amounts and inferior quality.

Taking a superior supplement such as Total Balance or Multi-Xtra will ensure that your body has enough riboflavin, vitamin C and more in order to function at its best – every day.