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As a child, I received a urine treatment for a chalazion on my upper eyelid. When I was six years old, a chalazion appeared on my eyelid during the winter. Although it didn’t bother me, my parents took me to an ophthalmologist who recommended surgery. This scared my mother, so she decided to try a home remedy instead, using compresses made with boiled urine.
The smell of the boiled urine was overwhelming and filled the entire apartment for a month. My parents eventually grew impatient with the treatment and stopped boiling the urine, and miraculously, the chalazion disappeared on its own a month later.
Now, as a doctor, I know that there is no scientific evidence to support urine therapy as a cure for any known illnesses or as a means of improving overall health. However, as long as it is not injected intravenously and traditional treatment is not rejected, using urine therapy is unlikely to cause any harm to one’s health.
What is urine therapy?
Urine therapy is a method of alternative medicine. Its proponents drink or apply their own urine or animal urine to affected areas. Some radically minded individuals use urine for enemas, inject it intravenously, or directly into the source of the problem, such as a tumor, muscle, or wound.
It is uncertain where the practice of urine therapy came from. For example, information about it is present in the texts of Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. However, it received the widest recognition in India. For millennia, urine therapy has been practiced there as a part of Ayurveda and is known as shivambhu.
In some Indian pharmacies, pure cow urine or decoctions containing it continue to be sold. In Europe, urine therapy became more popular in the 20th century: dozens of books were dedicated to it, detailing the methods of urine application and stories of miraculous healings. However, none of these sources have a scientific basis.
What beneficial properties are attributed to urine?
In various manuals on urine therapy, authors explain the beneficial properties of urine as follows. Firstly, the blood passes through the liver, where all harmful substances are filtered out. After detoxification, the blood passes through the kidneys, where all excess, but vital substances such as hormones, minerals, and water are filtered out to balance their content in the body. As a result, urine is sterile and full of useful substances. When it re-enters the body, it activates the immune system.
Indian followers of urine therapy believe that urine is a divine nectar with supernatural properties because it is full of cosmic energy and light. Therefore, regular consumption of one’s own urine not only cures diseases but also generally improves a person’s well-being.
Supporters of urine therapy believe that urine is a natural cure for any disease, including cancer, AIDS, diabetes, allergies, anemia, rabies, tuberculosis, and mental illnesses. Rinsing the eyes with urine supposedly eliminates eye infections and improves vision, rinsing wounds accelerates their healing, and rubbing warm urine into the joints can treat rheumatic diseases. Even a miscarriage that has already begun can supposedly be stopped and pregnancy preserved by drinking urine in time.
Does urine therapy really work?
Urine is actually produced after blood filtration in the kidneys. It is 95% water and the remaining 5% is waste that forms after the breakdown of substances and is not needed by the body: urea, creatinine, ammonia, salts, acids, toxins, and various metabolites. There are no compounds capable of affecting immunity or otherwise improving health in such concentrations.
Earlier, urine was considered sterile, but then studies showed that there is its own urobiome in the urinary bladder. These are bacteria that are normally present in every person and protect against diseases caused by pathogenic microorganisms.
None of the components of urine, separately or together, can give it therapeutic properties. This is confirmed by research. Currently, there is no scientific evidence in the literature to support the effectiveness of urine therapy in treating any illnesses.
Urine is sterile in the kidneys and ureters. Bacteria can enter it in the bladder, where they end up when they move up the urethra.
Urine is sterile in the kidneys and ureters. Bacteria enter it in the bladder, where they end up when they move up the urethra.
How can urine therapy harm?
Some people believe that scientists are colluding with pharmaceutical companies and reject the benefits of urine therapy because urine is a free natural medicine. If everyone believes this, the pharmaceutical industry will go bankrupt. However, not everything natural is truly beneficial.
It is unlikely that urine therapy can cause serious harm to health, but doctors still do not recommend using urine for medicinal purposes due to potential risks.
Side effects of urine intake
The most common side effects are nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and diarrhea. They usually manifest themselves in the first few days of urinotherapy. Nausea and vomiting are a reflex that helps the body get rid of ingested toxins. This is further proof that urine is unlikely to be suitable for drinking.
Sepsis
Introducing urine through injections can lead to blood infection, when bacteria spread with its flow and cause an inflammatory reaction, which often ends in death.
Infection contamination
Urine therapy with one’s own urine or even the urine of animals can lead to the development of infection. For example, the practice of treating febrile seizures in children with urine therapy is widespread in Africa. Therefore, scientists conducted a study on the composition of urine in children and cows there. It turned out that urine can lead to infection with microbes that are resistant to antibiotics.
Excess salt
The concentration of salts in the urine is 2%. Therefore, doctors do not recommend drinking it even for survival. It is almost the same as drinking seawater, where the concentration of salt is about 3.4%.
The stronger the dehydration of the organism, the higher the concentration of salts in the urine. Salt drags water out of the cells, causing the body to excrete more fluids than it absorbs, which leads to further dehydration and coma.
Enhancement of side effects from medication intake
Some medications are excreted in urine. If you regularly drink it, there is a risk that the concentration of drugs will exceed the permissible limit and side effects will appear. For example, there may be an increased risk of kidney stones forming while taking the antibiotic ceftriaxone.
Refusal of effective treatment
The main danger of urine therapy, as well as other alternative medicine methods, is that a person may refuse modern treatment. Time will then be lost, and later the disease may not be treatable even with effective methods.
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