Q: Is urine with an ammonia smell a problem?
A: Urine smells different depending on what you eat, so your diet can influence the smell. The pH of the body fluids has to be carefully regulated in the range 7.35 to 7.45, since deviations outside this range affects normal functioning of cells and body systems. One of the ways the kidneys have of excreting excess acid in the body fluids is to excrete ammonia (or rather, the ammonium ion: NH4+) in the urine. Exposed to air, the ammonium ions in urine change back to ammonia and produce the distinctive smell.