Question

A. Two individuals complain of polyuria and polydipsia. For evaluative purposes, each person provides a urine sample. Person A’s sample has a specific gravity of 1.002, and person B’s sample has a specific gravity of 1.052. The individuals have the same symptoms. Why is there such a big difference in the specific gravity results?

Answer 1

Polyuria and polydipsia are symptoms of diabetes. In polyuria, the individual experiences abnormal large amount of urine while in polydipsia the individual has excessive thirst and desire for water.

The person with Polyuria excretes excessive large amount of dilute urine that's why the specific gravity is lower. But the person with polydipsia has a higher specific gravity because their urine is concentrated.