beet etal juice

BEET ETAL JUICE
as a doctor you go through 4 years of college
4 years of medical school
3-5 years of residency training
then
you go out into the real world to really learn things

it seemed over my 30 year career i was always learning
new things not seen before in training and in practice

asymptomatic hematuria (blood in the urine)
 is one one of those red flags that
you would commonly see in patients that sometimes meant
something bad was wrong with them

ive had patients present this way and they ended up
having bladder cancer or kidney cancer or prostate cancer
usually though
it was something benign like cystitis or a bladder infection or
a vessel that popped in the bladder
these clear up without any problems



this last year i have discovered that i like beets
if they are grown in my garden and eaten fresh

we eat them in salads and love them grilled or broiled
with other veggies
they are sweet when eaten fresh and delicious

last week after the big rains we had i picked several beets
first one day for a salad then another day for grilled veggies

as i sliced them for eating i noticed that they were unusually
juicy
when i cut the beet it was like i had cut into a vein during surgery
i had beet juice all over the place
in fact i wiped off my hand because i thought i had cut myself
i hadnt

we grilled the beets and they were the best that i had ever eaten

ok this may get a little squeamish
the next day my wife told me she had an appointment to see her
doctor as she had blood in her urine
it didnt hurt like a bladder infection though

i went into doctor mode instantly and thought
lets see middle age female with painless hematuria (blood in urine)
could be simple or something bad
so i started to worry some

until
i went to take a leak
and my urine was dark
what the heck was going on
now ive got it
felt slightly better since cancer is not contagious usually

the next day mine went away but hers was still there but
was fading and by the end of the day it was gone

i started to think about the beets and how much the juice looked
like blood
so i did what everyone else does
i googled it

its called beeturia
15% of people can get it
the pigments in beets interact with things in the body and you can
get red urine

we got it because of the high water content in those beets from
the previous rains and the fact that i picked them from the garden
about an hour before we ate them

i dont recall in my 30 years of practicing ever seeing this before
maybe i did but didnt recognize thats what it was

we have 5 beets left in the garden waiting for our next grilling
hopefully they will not bleed so much when i cut them
or

ill plant these yellow beets next time
but
that may be another story

you live and learn

the organicgreen doctor