The swimming world was briefly turned upside down this summer when Ryan Lochte and Michael Phelps shared a disturbing truth: they pee in the pool.

Lochte was the first to admit it, when he told Ryan Seacrest that he sometimes urinated in the Olympic warm-up pool.

Phelps confirmed Lochte's admission in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, saying that there's nothing wrong with peeing in the pool because any chemicals in urine are killed by the chlorine.

"I think everybody pees in the pool," Phelps said. "It's kind of a normal thing to do for swimmers. When we're in the water for two hours, we don't really get out to pee."

And as it turns out, they're right.

In a recent review titled "Celebrities and Science 2012," the British non-profit Sense About Science (SAS) asked biochemist Stuart Jones to give his opinion on the matter. Jones' response backs up Phelps' and Lochte's claims, if not exactly for the same reasons.

"Urine is essentially sterile so there isn't actually anything to kill in the first place," Jones said. "Urine is largely just salts and water with moderate amounts of protein and DNA breakdown products."

What's more, Jones says that a few swimmers peeing in a huge pool has little effect on the entire pool's composition.

So Lochte knew what he was talking about all along. Maybe this guy is more of a science whiz than we realized.

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