Like most people drinking my urine isn’t really something I’ve given a lot of thought. Sure if I was I was lost in the desert and at death’s door, I’d probably do it, but making it my beverage of choice when there is perfectly good water around, I certainly need some serious convincing.
Urophagia is the term used to describe the consumption of one’s urine. It’s often considered a dirty practice and best left to those in extreme circumstances who have no other choice. But contrary to the belief, urine is actually a by-product of blood filtration, not waste filtration. It’s made up of about 95 per cent water, while the remaining five per cent consists of nutrients, including minerals, proteins and antibodies.
Auto-urine therapy or urotherapy involves the use of a patient’s own urine for cosmetic or medical and wellbeing purposes and is becoming increasingly popular. Martha Christy, the author of Your Own Perfect Medicine, is a strong advocate of drinking your own urine. She claims after contracting a crippling, incurable disease early in life, she was recommended ‘urine therapy’ by a friend.
“I thought she’d lost her mind, but with no options left, I swallowed my prejudice and decided to give it a go. To my own (and everyone else’s) amazement, my healing was so rapid and so profound with urine therapy that no question remained in my mind that someone in the medical community had to know more than they were telling about this incredible body substance,” she said.
“After many months of haunting university libraries, scanning countless microfiche files and poring over piles of medical journals, I had amassed a small mountain of astounding research studies, findings and files on the use of urine in medicine and healing, I discovered, among numerous other things, that urine, far from being a toxic body waste, was actually a purified derivative of the blood made by the kidneys which contains, not body wastes, but rather an incredible array of critically important nutrients, enzymes, hormones, natural antibodies and immune defense agents.”
And Christy is not alone. About 60 years ago, a Greek doctor, Evangelos Danopolous, MD, said he discovered anti-cancer properties in urea and had used them to treat patients with skin and liver cancer.
However, The British Dietetic Association listed urine therapy as the number one dodgy celeb diet to avoid in 2015 because there is “no scientific evidence that it adds anything beneficial to the body and its safety has not been established”. The association recommends drinking urine only in emergencies, adding that anti-cancer claims made in favour of urine therapy, are not backed up by scientific studies.
