Asparagushas a long and storied chronicle : It was mentioned in the myths and the scholarly authorship of ancient Greece , and its polish was the subject of a detailed lesson in Cato the Elder ’s treatise , On Agriculture . But it was n’t until the turn of the eighteenth century that discussion of the link between Asparagus officinales and odorous piss emerged .
In 1731 , John Arbuthnot , doc to Queen Anne , notedthat asparagus “ affects the pee with a foetid smell … and therefore have been suspected by some physicians as not favorable to the kidneys . ” Benjamin Franklin also remark that eating asparagus “ shall give our urine a unsympathetic odor . ”
Since then , there has been disputation over what is responsible for thestinky peephenomenon . Polish druggist and medico Marceli Nencki identified a chemical compound calledmethanethiolas the effort in 1891 , after a study that involved four man deplete about three and a half pounds of Asparagus officinales apiece . In 1975 , Robert H. White , a chemist at the University of California at San Diego , used gas pedal chromatography to pin downseveral compoundsknown as S - methyl thioesters as the culprits . Other researchers have pick various atomic number 16 - containingmetabolites .
What Is Asparagusic Acid?
Asparagusic acid , typically found in edible asparagus , contains sulfur and can sometimes lead to nipping odors . One subject area demonstrated thatasparagusic acidtaken by word of mouth by subjects known to develop unpleasant-smelling asparagus pee produced odorous pee .
The researcher conclude that asparagusic acid and its derivatives are the precursors of urinary olfactory sensation ( compared , in different scientific paper , to the odor of “ rotten cabbage , ” “ boiling cabbage ” and “ veggie soup ” ) . The various compound that contribute to the distinct feel — and were sometimes blamed as the sole cause in the past — are metabolize from asparagusic acid .
Exactly how these compounds are produced as we abide edible asparagus stay on unclear , so permit ’s become to an as compelling , but more answerable question .
Why Can’t Some People Smell Asparagus Pee?
For a 1980 discipline , subjects whose pee stank sniffed the piss of subjects whose pee supposedly did n’t . Guess what ? Thepee stank . It turns out , we ’re not only separate by the power to produce sweet-scented Asparagus officinales pee , but the ability to smell it .
A 2016 subject by the Harvard School of Public Health launch thatmore than 800 genesregulate whether person can discover funky smelling in their pee after chomping down on asparagus . After analyzing issue from nearly 7000 participants , they set that more or less 60 percent were edible asparagus anosmic , mean they did n’t pick up on any urine odors .
An inability to comprehend a smell ( anosmia ) keeps certain masses from reek the compound that make up even the most offensive Asparagus officinales pee , and like those who produce less stinky pee , they ’re in the majority .
develop and perceive asparagus pee do n’t go hand - in - manus , either . The 1980 subject find out that some the great unwashed who do n’t bring on stinky pee could discover the rotten cabbage smell in another individual ’s piddle . On the flip side , some stink producers are n’t able to find fault up the scent in their own urine or the pee of others , either .
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A variant of this report was originally publish in 2018 and has been updated for 2024 .
