What are the health benefits of drinking urine?

5 minutes read.      

You may have heard that urine is a miracle medicine but is this claim really true?

Drinking or local application of human or animal urine for medicinal purposes has been practiced all over the world for millennia.

Documented prescriptions in Europe originate from ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome.

While many of the advances of antique medicine were forgotten after the fall of the Roman Empire, the use of urine and other excrements enjoyed continued popularity in medieval times.

Ancient Indian yogic texts and ancient Chinese documents describe the benefits of drinking one’s own urine. 

The Africans, the Americas, and other parts of the world have traditionally used urine for various medical indications for a very long time, too.

Taking a golden shower. Drinking from your own spigot. Sipping a warm cup of herbal pee. You may give it any name you wish.

In this article, I will review all the benefits of drinking urine you never knew including the risk involved. Feel free to skip ahead:

What’s Urine?

Content of urine , Use of urine

Is urine sterile? Is urine safe to drink?

Can urine keep you hydrated?

Conclusion

What is urine?

Urine is composed of fluid and waste products that your body doesn’t need. Your kidneys work as filters, removing excess water and cellular byproducts from the bloodstream. This waste is sent down to the bladder as urine.

Content of urine

What are the components of urine?

Water makes up 91 to 96 percent of your urine. The rest is made from salts, ammonia, and byproducts produced during normal body processes.

Your urinary tract extends from your kidneys to your urethra. You have two kidneys, one on each side of the body.

The kidneys send urine down to the bladder through two muscular tubes called ureters. When your bladder is full, nerve endings send a signal to your brain that it’s time to find a bathroom.

When you empty your bladder, urine exits the body through a small tube called the urethra. The urethra is home to some types of bacteria.

Normally, these bacteria don’t cause any problems, unless they grow out of control. Scientific studies on urine composition, however, show that these bacteria can contaminate urine as it exits the body.

Folks claim the Use of Urine

In 1945, John W. Armstrong, a British naturopath, published a popular book about the alleged curative power of drinking one’s own urine. The book, “The Water of Life: A Treatise on Urine Therapy,” claims that urine can cure all major illnesses.

He claimed that those near death needed to eat and drink nothing but their own urine for several weeks and have urine massaged into their skin daily.

Other claims about urine therapy are anecdotal or stem from ancient texts. Claims have been made that drinking urine may treat the following conditions:

• allergies
• acne
• cancer
• heart problems
• infections
• wounds
• stuffy nose
• rash and other skin ailments
• stings

In modern-day Nigeria, some traditional communities still use urine as a home remedy for children with seizures.

Is urine sterile?

In a word, no. The myth that urine is sterile is a pervasive and lasting one. Even some doctors don’t know that it’s just a myth.

The myth about urine being sterile likely dates back to a study of urinary tract infections (UTIs) conducted back in the 1950s. During this study, samples of urine that showed no signs of UTI were labeled “negative.”

However, the absence of a UTI — which is caused by an overgrowth of bacteria — isn’t the same as the absence of bacteria.

More recent studies have shown that urine does in fact contain bacteria that could be harmful if ingested or introduced into the bloodstream through a wound.

Is urine safe to drink?

Is there any health risk in drinking urine?

While drinking a little bit of your own urine probably won’t hurt you, it’s definitely not as safe as a glass of water. as a result you may be taking some risk. For example:

• Bacteria

Your body is home to many different colonies of healthy bacteria. Your urinary tract contains different types of bacteria.

These are harmless unless they start growing out of control. When urine passes through the urinary tract, it becomes contaminated with bacteria.

Drinking urine, whether your own or someone else’s, introduces bacteria into your system that can cause gastrointestinal problems or other infections.

• Toxins

Urine contains waste products that have been filtered out of your bloodstream. Although they’re called toxins, these waste products aren’t exactly toxic. They are, however, highly concentrated.

 And your body is trying to get rid of these because if they stay in the body, they do harm.

Drinking urine reintroduces concentrated waste products into your system. This forces the kidneys to filter them out again, causing unnecessary strain.

Medications

After prescription medications are metabolized, they’re excreted through your urine. Drinking your own urine could alter the dose of a medication you’re already taking.

Drinking someone else’s urine could introduce a foreign medication into your bloodstream.

Can urine keep you hydrated?

Drinking urine isn’t usually good for you. But what if you’re stranded on a desert island? Can drink your own urine save you from dying of dehydration?

Although it makes for a dramatic movie scene, this is just a myth. Drinking urine when you’re dying of dehydration would be about the same as drinking seawater — only yuckier.

Urine contains concentrated salts and minerals. To process salt, your kidneys require a certain amount of water.

To compensate for increased salt intake, you’d have to pee out more water than you take in from urine. This would actually accelerate the dehydration process.

The U.S. Army Field Manual also instructs soldiers not to drink their own urine in a survival situation.

Conclusion

Drinking your own urine isn’t advisable. It can introduce bacteria, toxins, and medications into your system. There’s no reason to think that drinking urine would benefit your health in any way.

There are much more effective routes for getting a high dose of vitamins and minerals.

 However, since urine is not toxic or harmful if you choose to drink your urine or your partner’s urine make sure both of you are confirmed to be free from any harmful or bacteria overgrowth through a trusted lab test and both you should stick to each other and avoid contamination from outside.

More so if you or your partner or the person you want to drink the urine from is taking tobacco, smoking, taking medication, or drinking excess alcohol, all these could post serious contamination to the person’s urine because some drugs can be excreted in the urine after metabolism.

I hope you get the value worth your time. I appreciate the time you spend with me. Leave a comment if you like this post. Do you have any questions as regards this topic I didn’t answer here? Feel free to share in the comment below.

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