While you may have heard of the term ‘golden shower’, a sexual fetish that involves urinating or being urinated upon to derive pleasure, some Indians have developed another obsession of late and are only now opening up about it — auto-urine therapy.
India is the land of gharelu nuskhe and DIY treatments, and home remedies are usually the preferred health fix. For centuries, Indians have followed the practice of Ayurveda, favouring the alternative medicine system that finds its roots in the subcontinent to modern medicine. Now, an increasing number of Indians are reviving ‘auto-urine therapy’ — or the practice of drinking your own urine for health benefits. Move over, gaumutra (cow urine).
The therapy, also known as urophagia, was incidentally practised most famously by former Prime Minister Morarji Desai, who lived to a ripe old age of 99 and was a robust, healthy man until his death. He is even said to have convinced another former Cabinet minister to try urine therapy.
Even though urine consumption is usually associated with India, there exists a 20th-century treatise called The Water of Life, authored by John W. Armstrong, which is all about this ‘therapy’. According to Armstrong, all those diseases caused by “traumatism or structural disorders” can be cured by human urine. Since the only ingredient needed is a substance manufactured in the body itself, it is rich in mineral salts, hormones and other essential nutrients, goes the claim.
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One teaspoon, twice a day
According to Jagdish R. Burani, a proponent of urine therapy, the Sanskrit word “Shivambu”, which literally means ‘beneficial water’, refers to auto or self-urine therapy. His website notes that Hindu deity Shiva extolled its benefits to his consort, Parvati. The website adds that in a text called Damar Tantra, there are 107 shlokas (couplets) that claim all diseases can be cured by one’s own urine, and everyone can retain health and strength through regular use of Shivambu.
Pankaj Narayan Pandit, founder and trustee of SLK Foundation, a Maharashtra-based charitable trust, and an avid proponent of urine therapy, says, “People assume wrongly that one has to drink a whole glass of urine, or sometimes even others’ urine. That is misinformation.”
He recommends drinking a teaspoon, twice a day. If it feels like a nauseating idea, one can, he suggests, start by ‘topical medication’ (applied on skin) and then proceed to consumption, since the urea found in urine is good for the skin too. The recommended urine is ideally the one collected mid-stream while urinating in evenings, because it is less concentrated and of ‘better quality’.
The nature or extent of the chronic illness decides the frequency and intake. If someone has dysentery, for instance, they can drink as much as they want. Don’t know how much to drink? Pandit says that everyone’s body has a “sixth sense”, which can help determine how much urine one should consume.
On being asked if there are any side-effects to the consumption of excess urine, Pandit says that there is none as such. There are, in fact, urine fasts, much like juice detoxes, that many people undertake, to compensate for a bad week of eating, drinking or an unhealthy lifestyle in general, he said.
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Cow urine club vs human urine club
In 2019, Minister of State Ashwini Kumar Choubey noted that the AYUSH Ministry is seriously working on using cow urine for treatment of cancer and other diseases. After all, cancer seems to be the magic word when it comes to claiming the veracity of any treatment. Yoga practitioner and businessman Ramdev has in the past claimed to cure cancer through seven exercises popularised by him.
Burani’s website on auto-urine therapy also highlights patient testimonials on how drinking their own urine has helped them cure not just cancer but a number of diseases from gangrene to Covid. It is difficult to determine the veracity of these claims because when ThePrint contacted some urologists about their opinion on the efficacy of auto urine and cow urine therapy, they refused to comment on the matter. (Several reports have debunked such claims that urine therapy can cure Covid.)
A search on e-commerce website Amazon shows that you can buy 500 ml of cow urine for Rs 100. There are numerous research articles, quite a few that have been promoted or funded by the government, that detail the various benefits of consumption of cow urine.
Sunil Mansinghka, coordinator of Go Vigyan Anusandhan Kendra at Deolapar, Maharashtra, says that proper research has been carried out on all products that are extracted from cows, be it milk or urine, and that they are examined scientifically, before their benefits are shared or extolled.
Cow urine, Mansinghka says, can be consumed by children as young as 12 years old. One can drink 15-20 ml of cow urine with water, twice or thrice a day. Children younger than 12 can take around 5 ml or a teaspoon. Those with acidity should consume it only after meals and never on an empty stomach, according to him.
Researchers who have studied this therapy, though, clearly say that “the treatment of vulnerable and already ill children with urine should be strongly discouraged.”
But there exist significant differences between the proponents of cow urine and those of self urine. According to Pandit, consumption of cow urine is not as beneficial as auto-urine therapy — “Why stop at cow urine? Might as well go for buffalos or goats.” Mansinghka, meanwhile, asserts that Indian shastras (ancient books) have said consumption of one’s urine makes humans “impure”.
And yet, despite these differences, there is a significant section of people who consume urine, either their own or a cow’s, for its alleged health benefits. Those who do, however, do not necessarily talk about it openly, fearing ridicule. Mansinghka notes that even pharmaceutical industries do not like to discuss this treatment.
Diss it, disbelieve it or be outraged by it — the fact remains that many Indians have and will continue to practice self-urine therapy and no amount of olfactory distress can discourage them.
(Edited by Rachel John)