KATHMANDU, JUNE 09
It may sound strange, but urine's medicinal properties were discovered by our ancient sages. Charak Samhita has described the role of urine in anointing, enema, purgatives, keeping the body warm and in abdominal expansion. Urine is used in poisoning also.
Urine has the properties of being sharp, pungent, saline and non-greasy and is useful for treating diseases like piles, skin disorders, white patches on the skin and abdominal diseases.
Urine promotes appetite and digestion. Urine acts as an anti poison and kills worms in the body. Urine gives appreciable results in anaemia.
Ayurvedic texts have described properties of eight types of urine. Urine is used in the form of internal application by drinking and through its external application by mixing it with powdered drugs.
Urine is composed mainly of water with little quantities of urea, uric acid and salts of phosphate, sodium and calcium and hormones in varying proportion.
Although a waste product of the body, it has many medicinal properties, which were recognised by ancient medical practitioners.
Holding a special place in Hindu culture, cow urine has been the most widely referred, used and venerated animal urine due to its immense therapeutic forte.
Apart from cow's urine, which was used more commonly because of the special sanctity attached to the cow in India, the urines of other animals, such as the goat, sheep, buffalo, elephant, horse, camel and donkey were also very much in use as remedies for the treatment of worms, dropsy, abdominal enlargement, flatulence, colic, anaemia, abdominal tumor, loss of appetite, tuberculosis, leprosy and mental diseases.
Urine therapy had been practised for thousands of years but fell into obscurity in the last century. Therefore, it does not introduce anything new or original.
It has been known throughout the centuries both in the West and in the East. Dr. Evagelos Danopouolos of Greece has reported that urea found in urine has anti-cancerous properties.
The urea seems to disrupt the ability of cancer cells to group together and kills them by upsetting some of their normal metabolic activities.
Urine therapy has been used to treat cancers of the skin, cervix, lungs, eyes, breast, and liver.
The first question that probably comes to the mind is whether urine is not a toxic substance and how a toxic waste product could ever be of any benefit to your health.
Well, urine is not a toxic waste product and has been scientifically proven.
A version of this article appears in the print on June 10, 2021, of The Himalayan Times.
