Urine therapy: Drinking urine requires great skills and caution

Thousands of people drink their own urine and massage their skin with their own urine. Though urine therapy is no longer as popular as it used to be in the latter years of the Soviet Union, the practice is still in vogue with many citizens of Russia. There are no statistics whatsoever on the use of one’s own urine as a medicine. Practitioners of urine therapy otherwise known as uropaths reveal no information regarding detrimental effects of urinotherapy on their well-being. On the contrary, the former promoters of the practice keep praising at length its alleged preventive and curative powers. They believe urine is the source of health, strength, beauty and longevity. They like citing ancient texts to point up the assertions.

Photo: Urine therapy: Drinking urine requires great skills and caution

Urine therapy: Drinking urine requires great skills and caution

Below are some of the instructions and recommendations contained in the so-called “classical texts” on urine therapy.

“A practitioner should awake early in the morning and pass the urine, facing the east.”

“The body of a person who drinks the urine and rubs it into his skin for three years will be filled with strength and splendor. The person will be endowed with eloquence; he will also possess knowledge of arts and sciences.”

“A pot used for holding one’s urine should be wiped clean with a rag prior to use. One should repeat the incantation for seven times while cleaning the pot.”

“It is possible to cure any disease by drawing the urine through the nostrils every morning. Digestion will improve and the whole body will grow stronger.”

“A person will live a long life if he massages his entire body with his own urine three times in daytime and three times at night.”

Promoters of urine therapy seem to form the basis of the practice by citing extracts from ancient wisdom. On the face of it, their arguments purport to be logical. But all of them boil down to the same argumentation pattern: that is correct, urine is the waste matter sent out of the body by the kidneys through the bladder. Not unlike urine, manure is the waste matter too. At the same time, manure can have a beneficial effect on a plant if used as a substance to fertilize soil.

Perhaps I am slightly exaggerating the method for effect yet its logic remains unchanged. Even if you are ready to accept this kind of reasoning, you may still feel too squeamish to start a course of urine therapy. Incidentally, practitioners of urine therapy say that one’s squeamishness rests on stereotypes only. In other words, you are not supposed to confuse a toilet with a cesspool.

As it turned out, the disgusting smell of our urine is our own fault because “our wrong diet does damage to the chemical makeup of the excreted urine.” Researcher/practitioner Y. Frolov says he did his best trying to examine the issue of urine therapy from an (ostensibly) unbiased point of view. His verdict: the practice is worth trying. Frolov suggests we look at the liquid from a fresh angle and try to get used to it. Here are useful tips for the beginners by courtesy of Y. Frolov:

“You can start by sprinkling some urine over your hands so that you may feel its texture. Then smell the urine and check your reaction. If you feel nauseous, continue the procedure for a period of time until reaction starts to change for the better. Once the smell stops nauseating you and your attitude toward urine becomes neutral, use a dropper a put a bit of urine on your tongue.

You might as well like the taste of urine. Continue sampling until all your negative and positive emotions disappear and you start feeling completely neutral toward the urine. The technique will give your conscious a chance to stay pristine, without any thought, convention or some other nuisanceinterferingwith the process.”

Urinating on superficial burns and stings has been commonly believed to be a popular folk remedy. Promoters of urine therapy say that “urine’s antiseptic properties cause mild burning and stinging sensations of the skin if the urine is applied to a cut or as an aftershave. It is still unclear which of the constituents of urine works as a topical antiseptic. Scientists still have to discover that constituent.”

Researcher Rinad Minvaleyev offers a different explanation of urine’s antiseptic properties. He suggests taking a closer look at the chemical makeup of urine. Aside from the main components – urea and water – urine also contains some quantities of hormones and metabolites, including corticosteroids. Corticosteroids are used in a variety of antiseptic ointments and creams, which can destroy germs and harmful microorganisms. Urine has a similar effect on the damaged skin when it comes to treatment of superficial burns, cuts and stings.

So have no fear when peeing on your finger if you get it burned. However, please make sure that your urine is clean and healthy. In other words, do not use your own urine as an aseptic if you have a kidney infection or a similar malady.

What about drinking one’s own urine daily for prevention of diseases? That is yet another piece of advice of those who advocate urine therapy. You are also recommended to evaporate the substratum before use to enhance urine’s curative powers. Evaporation leads to an increase in concentration of steroid hormones. Drinking one’s own urine appears to be yet another kind of hormonal therapy.

Steroids taken for therapeutic purposes can have a powerful overall effect on a person’s well-being. The patient will feel and function a lot better after the first weeks of oral autourotherapy. However, all the benefits of the method will vanish without a trace within a year or two because the body stops to produce naturally occurring hormones unless it is treated with dope on a regular basis.

Besides, patients with diseases of gastrointestinal tract are discouraged from using steroids because the latter cause ulceration of the walls of the stomach and intestine. Doctors often complain of their patients who used urine therapy for treating a case of common gastritis. As a result, gastritis turned into ulcer.

Those who drink their own urine to cure ulcer are likely to take the consequences. The disease will exacerbate, and complications including perforation and peritonitis may occur. However, not a single article on urinotherapy refers to its risks associated with duodenal ulcer. They simply do not write on the subject. In any case, no relevant information has ever been published in Russian-language publications.

In the meantime, urine therapists recommend the use of urine for preventing and treating a plethora of conditions, they say it is safe to use urine whatever problem may be. People are advised to use urine as eye and ear drops, soak compresses in urine before applying them to injured parts of the body etc. Well, many take the recommendations as a guide to action. Most of such urine users end up in a doctor’s office – they develop a severe form of conjunctivitis caused by the bacterium Neisseria gonorrhoeae, the same bacterium that causes a gonorrheal infection.

To sum it up, I would like to advise those who are pondering urine therapy: have your urine examined prior to drinking it. Take a sample of your urine for a test to find out whether it contains any microorganisms which can do damage to your body. Make sure the remedy you are about to use is safe.

Translated by Guerman Grachev
Pravda.ru