What is ‘Dhat Syndrome’?

Sometime one passes whitish fluid in the urine or while straining at stools. The belief that this fluid is semen is called as the ‘Dhat syndrome’. This is not a disease and it would not be inappropriate to say, “It exists only in the mind of the beholder.”

The physiological sphincter at the neck of the urinary bladder always remains closed and opens only when one is passing urine. Thus, it ensures that normally, urine and semen can never mix together i.e. normally; one cannot pass semen in urine. Sometimes, a physiological alteration in the urinary solutes may change the appearance of urine, making it whitish, which is mistaken to be semen by misinformed individuals.

In reality, it is a secretion of the prostate and the urethral glands. When a person squats in the toilet and exerts a little pressure, this pressure is relayed from the rectum to the prostate and the urethra, and a few drops of a sticky white secretion accumulate, coalesce and trickle down. The phenomenon is akin to there being 10 drops of perspiration on the forehead being joined by an eleventh and tricking down. In my opinion, this misconception is prevalent in our country because of squatting toilet habits, as people tend to look down and see the sticky substance, which they presume to be semen. In developed countries, most people use western style commodes, so they look straight ahead. Hence, ‘what the eye does not see, the mind does not know!’