Urine acidity and alkalinity
Biomarker library
Urinalysis
Urine pH
Urine pH measures how acidic or alkaline your urine is, on a scale where 7 is neutral. Most urine is slightly acidic, around 5.5 to 6.5.
Measured in your health assessment, with a doctor to explain your result. Book yours
Why it matters
Your kidneys balance your body's acid levels by passing acid into urine, and what you eat shifts the result: meat-heavy meals make urine more acidic, plant-rich meals more alkaline.
What a result can mean
Lower than the range
Acidic urine is common with high-protein diets, fasting, dehydration and poorly controlled diabetes, and it favours uric acid kidney stones.
Higher than the range
Alkaline urine is common after vegetable-rich meals. It can also occur with some urine infections, because certain bacteria make ammonia, and it favours some types of kidney stone.
What can help
Urine pH is a clue rather than a target, and it is read with the rest of the urine test. People who have had kidney stones may be given advice on diet and fluids to shift it.
Read it with
NoteGeneral educational illustration. Colours, sizes and movement are simplified. This is not a scan or a simulation of your body. General information, not personal medical advice: a doctor reads your own results with your history.
Know your urine pH.
Measured in your health assessment and explained by the doctor who reviews your results.