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Hoots : What are the the possible effects of drinking urine? Does it provide extra minerals, hormones and enzymes needed for the body? I have been reading a book about Urine Therapy called "The Water of Life" by John W. Armstrong. - freshhoot.com

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What are the the possible effects of drinking urine? Does it provide extra minerals, hormones and enzymes needed for the body?
I have been reading a book about Urine Therapy called "The Water of Life" by John W. Armstrong. The book states that urine contains many minerals, enzymes and hormones that are necessary for the body. The book recommends drinking urine to help with many diseases. It is recommended even for physical wounds and states that urine is a natural cure for many serious diseases. I have also read that there are many medicines which use extracts from the urine. Does urine contain extra minerals needed for the body? If so, is it advisable to drink urine directly to get them?

Also, are there any active studies or research on the effectiveness of Urine therapy?

Some list of medicines which use extracts of urine (as said in above mentioned book),

2-CdA for treatment of cancer
urokinase - heart treatment
metrodin
pergonal
panafil
Primarin
Aminoserve


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Urine is being use as estrogen. One of the example is the animal urine (not sure in particular) but It is an ingredient that can be use for hormonal medicines like Premarin (conjugated estrogens). Conjugated estrogens treat symptoms of menopause such as hot flashes, and vaginal dryness, burning, and irritation. But I don't think that it is good to drink urine directly, as everything should be processed and examined. It is a waste from our body but small amount will not harm you. On the other side, there might be some substance that can be use for hormonal treatments. For added info, you can also check the link: True or False: It's safe to drink urine


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Have finished with the book 'The Water of Life' by John W. Armstrong and at the end of this translation there are references to different books wrote on Urine therapy from different authors from various part of the world. These books are examples for the researches conducted on this treatment technique.

The Golden Fountain - Coen Van Der Kroon(Netherlands)
Your Own Perfect Medicine - Martha Christy(USA)
Urine Therapy - Dr.Beatrice Barnett(USA)
Wonders of Urine Therapy - Dr. G.K. Thakkar(India)
Shivambu Gita - Dr.G.K Thakkar
Amroli - Swami Sathyanand Saraswathi(India)
The Urine Cure - John Rabitoch(Australia)
Suppressed Medical Discovery - Dr.Robert Beck(USA)
Urine The Holy Water - Herald W.Tietze(Germany)

I found these references towards the last pages of the book 'The Water of Life', so this is not a case of single author J.W Armstrong (he is considered as author of first book of this kind in modern medicine). There are old texts on the subject which is a 3000 years old book named 'Damar tantra shivambu kalpa vidhi' in India.

As I understood from the book, there were researches on this therapy and scientists have experimented with it and following are a few examples to the studies conducted on Urine, Urine's components and medicinal importance.

Hegyeli.A; M Laughlin. J.A; and Szent-Gyorgyi.A: 'Preparation of Retine from Human Urine', 'Science Magazine', December 20, 1963, pp.1571-1572 quoted in Your Own Perfect Magazine.
Davies.O; 'Youthful Uric Acid' Omni Magazine, October 1982, continuum Section.
Souvenir of FNCUT, 2008, Kolhapur, page 37.
Tierze W. Herald, Urine The Holy Water, p.78. Souvenir of FNCUT, 2008

Note: The answer is incomplete and needs to deal with some part of the question, will update with more details later.


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Your own Wikipedia page already states that "There is no scientific evidence of a therapeutic use for untreated urine" and "According to the American Cancer Society, "available scientific evidence does not support claims that urine or urea given in any form is helpful for cancer patients" "

But lets me show you more detailed evidence. First urine is nothing more than :

Urine is an aqueous solution of greater than 95% water, with the remaining constituents, in order of decreasing concentration, urea 9.3 g/L, chloride 1.87 g/L, sodium 1.17 g/L, potassium 0.750 g/L, creatinine 0.670 g/L and other dissolved ions, inorganic and organic compounds (see this nasa study)

We know that urine is not 100% sterile, but usually won't harm a healthy people if you drink it (and the urine is from a healthy person too that didn't drink any drug or poisons) but the only situation i can see it would be good to drink your own urine is if you are dehydrating to death and even that is not really recommended ( see this wonderful question on skeptics.se )

But you could think if we have potassium and other minerals in urine why not drink it? Because you can get much more by eating food and hormones are produced by your own body you don't need to drink pee to replace that, and they become urine for a good reason, see the conclusion of this study :

It is strongly suggested that alternative therapies should be non-hazardous, and therefore, inappropriate administration of remedies, such as urine therapy in pediatric health conditions should be discouraged, considering the fact that no documented scientific / clinical evidence of the beneficial effect of urine therapy in clinical had been reported, while multiple antibiotic resistant bacterial species had also been recovered from such urine.

Edit: About your medicines listed.

Metrodin = Wrong. Metrodin is is a man-made hormone called follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH). FSH is produced in the body by the pituitary gland. May appear on urine, however in very low concentrations to justify drinking your own pee.
Pergonal = Wrong. Menotropins are a mixture of follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinizing hormone (LH) that are produced in the body by the pituitary gland. May appear on urine, however in very low concentrations to justify drinking your own pee.
Panafil = Wrong.It is a proteolytic enzyme derived from the fruit of carica papaya. The only possible (not 100%) way its going to end up in your urine is if you are eating the fruit.
2-CdA = 2-CdA is the trade name for cladribine. Leustatin and 2-chlorodeoxyadenosine are other names for cladribine. It was extracted from urine and according to Wikipedia it was first synthesized at Brigham Young University (meaning they don't extract it from urine anymore), they do appear in urine but in too low concentrations to justify drinking your own pee.
Urokinase and Wikipedia page = Urokinase is a man-made product developed using a protein that occurs naturally in the kidneys. Urokinase is made from human kidney cells and albumin (part of the blood) which may contain viruses and other infectious agents. Urokinase was originally isolated from human urine, but is present in several physiological locations, such as blood stream and the extracellular matrix. Again, they do appear in urine but in too low concentrations to justify drinking your own pee.

Why drinking your own pee to get this substances is completely non-sense?

A single Banana have 450mg of potassium or 13% of our recommended intake. 2L of urine have 1500mg potassium or ~31% of recommended daily intake. But at this scale you would get 18,6g of urea, 3,74g of chloride and 2,34g of sodium too.

Now American Heart Association in 2010 chose to recommend that Americans eat less than 1,500 mg/day sodium as part of the definition of ideal cardiovascular health.. So you going 840mg above your ideal sodium consumption only with urine, long term drinking urine and a diet high in sodium will really hurt your health. (I don't think i have to cite the consequences of too much sodium right? Just google for it)

Now see the dangers of excess of Chloride note that The normal adult value for chloride is 97-107 mEq/L. and you will be consuming 3,74g to get only ~31% of your potassium intake. I didn't find a good converter online so i will let this to someone who can do this math. But just 1g/l is a lot more than 107meq/l. You only going to make your poor kidney to work much harder to handle all this chloride.

Now about urea, this study says:

There is limited information to suggest that the liver, kidney, and pituitary could be targets of urea toxicity. Under the Guidelines for Carcinogen Risk Assessment (U.S. EPA, 2005a), there is “inadequate information to assess the carcinogenic potential” of urea. Epidemiologic studies of humans chronically exposed to urea alone or urea-containing mixtures are limited.

But drinking 18,6g of urea daily surely can't be good to you. There is no scientific evidence for health benefits of drinking this. Lack of studies is not equal to no toxicity!

For hormones i think you can see why is totally no-sense, the amount of urine you would have to drink to get any considerable amount would be insane and toxic.


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