When you look into one of our refractometers you will see a 0-
This is what was said there:
SPECIFIC GRAVITY—1.015 is healthy, lower indicates low minerals or high intake of water, but if that is not the case then possible kidney problem. Above 1.015 indicates dehydration, not drinking enough pure clean water, electrolyte stress, kidneys overworked. Higher is a potential marker for more catabolic cell states and lower a potential marker for more anabolic cell states. The urine strip pad will reflect specific gravity of elements in the urine which will ionize. The refractometer also will supply a specific gravity reading, but it will reflect other non-
The top standard to obtain accurate specific gravity readings is a refractometer. In collegiate wrestling it is used over dipsticks or hydrometers to assess hydration status in wrestlers to make sure they did not dehydrate themselves for the weight certification process. Any reading above 1.020 SG is considered dehydration.
You might recall from the Resources section on Zeta Potential that when colloids in the system (blood) begin to lose the space around themselves (provided by water) they begin to lose their Zeta Potential and things start to stick together. This creates stress on the circulatory system. You can see how the refractometer and conductivity meter can be a good team toolset to have for quantifying some simple measures regarding the state of the circulatory system by way of urine which is blood filtrate. The microscope is the qualitative tool to actually see it.
With a refractometer and urine dipsticks, you can do a comparison between the two readings.
Shown below is the color pad from the urine strip next to a specific gravity scale from a refractometer.
You would expect that the color on the strip will match the reading from the refractometer. Recall that the dipstick will only read ionizable material in the urine. The refractometer will read that plus everything else. The two measures should be the same but if it turns out that the refractometer reading is higher than the dipstick, that is giving a clue that there is something more in the urine. That something more could possibly be a carbohydrate component potentially meaning the person is not handling sugar well or other issues possibly relating to poor digestion and not ionizing or fully breaking down food intake.
Handling sugar and effective digestion are at the top of the list of issues that a large portion of the population is not doing well which is leading to all sorts of symptoms and conditions with which they have to contend.