Riboflavin And Neon Urine

[Sheila]

Gosh, my first thread and it has to be this! How unedifying but can someone advise me please?

It is commonly stated that a sign of excess B2 is bright green-yellow urine.

Is this true?
Does most everyone get urine at elevated B2 supplement levels, say >50mg?
If at >200mg with regular dosing urine remains 'normal' coloured, is this a sign of mal-absorption or?

I know, this is awfully trivial, but I've not been able to work it out myself and would be grateful for thoughts, especially if there are wider implications wrt absorption.

Thank you
Sheila

 

[milk_lover]

I always get the neon urine after I supplement B2. I don't know if that's a good thing or bad to be honest.

 

[Luann]

I used to take nutritional yeast, 9.7 mg / helping, and I'd eat lots of it. It gave me bright yellow pee.

 

[PeatThemAll]

One thing that's nice about B-vitamins is their water solubility and their high NOAELs (upper limits). The body takes what it needs and excretes the excess at a very low metabolic cost. If and when you do approach your tolerance level, you start to feel it: the addition changes from pleasant extra oomph to ok-I've-had-enough weird feeling.

 

[tara]

Can't answer your question, but I think I always see the bright yellow after supplementing. Hope someone knows more.

 

[Sheila]

Thank you to all who replied here, I appreciate your thoughts and time, particularly that even at ~10mg bright yellow pee was evident.
I agree there is body intelligence at work and that yellow pee might be a sign of excess. But there may be forms of storage for these vitamins that we may not have got our head around yet, since if b vits were vital daily, critical deficiency signs - the classic diseases from these - would be very quickly apparent and this is rarely the case. Or maybe we can get by on very little under certain conditions for a long time. Or maybe we absorb more readily, the less we have and absorption is not linear.
Yet some who do not display oomph from b vits necessarily and even at higher dose, who eat consistently etc., still do not see this effect.
Too little absorption? Still not sufficient? Some co factor needed?
So this is a thank you to the team for answers to date and a hope for another piece of the puzzle from someone who missed this post last time around!
A very long way of saying "bump" (I believe the term is).
Many thanks
Sheila

 

[PeatThemAll]

Thank you to all who replied here, I appreciate your thoughts and time, particularly that even at ~10mg bright yellow pee was evident.
I agree there is body intelligence at work and that yellow pee might be a sign of excess. But there may be forms of storage for these vitamins that we may not have got our head around yet, since if b vits were vital daily, critical deficiency signs - the classic diseases from these - would be very quickly apparent and this is rarely the case. Or maybe we can get by on very little under certain conditions for a long time. Or maybe we absorb more readily, the less we have and absorption is not linear.
Yet some who do not display oomph from b vits necessarily and even at higher dose, who eat consistently etc., still do not see this effect.
Too little absorption? Still not sufficient? Some co factor needed?
So this is a thank you to the team for answers to date and a hope for another piece of the puzzle from someone who missed this post last time around!
A very long way of saying "bump" (I believe the term is).
Many thanks
Sheila

Keep in mind that even when taking nothing your urine color will change. Dilution matters, yes, but I discovered (when doing Intermittent Fasting) that taking distilled water vs water with minerals resulted in a different urine color. From what I read, there are also pigments that are linked to the everyday dying off of your red blood cells and that produce a color in the urine. In my case, fasting seemed to increase this baseline coloration, and distilled water increased it even more.

TL,DR: Supplements impact urine color. But so do basic body processes.

 

[tara]

Dilution matters, yes, but I discovered (when doing Intermittent Fasting) that taking distilled water vs water with minerals resulted in a different urine color. From what I read, there are also pigments that are linked to the everyday dying off of your red blood cells and that produce a color in the urine.

Riboflavin yellow is brighter, more to the neon; bilirubin yellow is a gentler more straw-coloured hue?

I have taken B2 doses from ~20mg up to ~20omg. I can see the effects at the smaller dose too, though not as bright.

 

[Sheila]

Thank you dear Tara, that you note a change between dose sizes is interesting, suggesting that there is a sufficiency element to this and it is person and context dependent to some degree.

PeatThemAll, indeed, thank you for the reminder regarding regular body processes and urine colour. Why do you think distilled water affected your urine colour (if that is what you meant) more? Did you feel better or worse using distilled water? Curiosity my interest here.
Thank you
Sheila

 

[PeatThemAll]

With regards to how I felt using distilled water rather than spring water, in general I felt worse off. Even though not eating, my gumline got more inflamed (pockets around teeth too). The urine color change was unexpected. Bilirubin clearance might be involved. I suspect lean tissue degradation too, as I felt Interstitial Cystitis symptoms when doing IF too frequently.

 

[Sheila]

With regards to how I felt using distilled water rather than spring water, in general I felt worse off. Even though not eating, my gumline got more inflamed (pockets around teeth too). The urine color change was unexpected. Bilirubin clearance might be involved. I suspect lean tissue degradation too, as I felt Interstitial Cystitis symptoms when doing IF too frequently.

Thank you, in my experiences with interstitial cystitis, I found that hypoglycaemia and endotoxin appeared to be involved also, and if this was during 'too frequent' IF, that would make sense to me. I appreciate your observations.
Sincerely,
Sheila