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By Dr Pius Musau
The use of urine for disease treatment or enhancement of health has a quasi-religious background. It has had its adherents from all classes in the 5000 years of existence and remains popular in China, India and South-East Asia. “Morarji cola” is the Indian jargon of urine therapy after a past Prime Minister, Morarji Desai, who died at 99 years and ascribed his longevity to drinking his own urine. For the millions of believers across the globe, it is the cheapest and un-patentable treatment for 175 ailments. But medical professionals consider it a hoax.
As a misplaced logic
Both the science and religion in urine therapy have been exposed as unsound.
• “Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well” is the Proverbs 5:15 verse relied on by John Armstrong -‘father of modern urine therapy’- in early 20th century to start drinking his own urine after failing to get a cure for his tuberculosis. This verse has since been revised to talk about adultery in current editions of the bible.
• The progression to not only drink but also bathe in one’s urine was advanced by the same Armstrong while latching on Matthew 6:17 that clearly has no mention of urine. His followers quickly added John 7:38 on rivers of living waters flowing from bellies but that did not bring a cure either.
• Urine is 95 per cent water, two and a half per cent urea and a two a half per cent mix of components ranging from Alanine to Zinc in the alphabet. Supporters of urine therapy talk of the value of these components to the body but forget that the body itself has secreted them into urine as unneeded or as toxic waste. Re-feeding the body on what it has already rejected is not a therapy, it is an overload on it purification mechanism.
• The idea that hormones found in urine can enhance vitality and sex drive just because purified forms of those hormones constitute the mainstay of fertility drugs is devoid of rational thinking.
• Urea is in use in ointments, toothpastes and skin lotions today but unprocessed urea will neither heal your wound nor whiten your teeth.
Urine therapy has remained controversial due to religious dogma and status of partakers. The objective position is that it is a practice that not only treats nothing but also misuses scientific data in its explanations.
-The writer is a Consultant Urologist and Lecturer at the Department of Surgery, Moi University, School of Medicine.
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