Although it sounds disgusting, drinking urine is safe . In fact, there is a traditional practice that is currently used as an alternative therapy called urine therapy, also called urotherapy or urinotherapy.
In addition to that, drinking urine is a practice that goes back to ancient man. The r EASONS to drink urine included survival, ceremonial purposes, sexual practices and the aforementioned alternative medicine. Drinking urine in ancient times was also related to teeth whitening, fertility treatments, hormonal therapy and as a way to prevent or treat cancer, arthritis, allergies and other diseases.
Let's see below the keys so that drinking urine is safe, starting from the basis that drinking a small amount of urine, especially of its own, does not entail a significant danger to health.
Keys for urine to be safe
Bacterial contamination
While it is unlikely that you can catch a disease that you do not have with your own urine, pathogens in the urine or mucosa of the urethra could pose a risk to the health of others. This is the main reason why drinking urine is discouraged .
Potential exposure to drugs
Some drugs and their metabolites are excreted in the urine, so drinking the urine of someone who is taking some medication - or some drug - could expose the receptor to these substances. In some cultures, drinking the urine of a person who has ingested a drug is a way for others to experience the effects. It is also used to medicate a person who does not want to be medicated or can not tolerate the drug or medication directly.
High mineral content
The urine is excreted from the body, so it makes sense to think that salts and minerals that the body does not need are expelled from it. Urine is high in urea, sodium, potassium and creatinine.
Being hydrated these minerals should not hurt you, but can go crazy to the kidneys if you do not have enough water to filter the excess.
Be careful with drinking urine when you are dehydrated
If you are dying of thirst , will it be okay to drink your own urine? If you have carefully read the previous point, you will know that the answer is no .
Although drinking any liquid, including urine, can alleviate the immediate sensation of thirst, sodium and other minerals in the urine will dehydrate you even more. The same thing happens with seawater.
Distill urine
One way to distill the urine is to boil the urine and distill the steam in another container where we will obtain pure water without danger of bacteria, concentration of salts or minerals dangerous to health. It is a slow process that implies necessarily taking care so that the steam does not escape to another place.
You can also have on hand, when you think you can get to a point where you need it, some commercial solution, such as HydroPack, which converts any non-potable water (except seawater) into drinking water through the known process as osmosis.
And then you have the astronaut version too . Considering that many of NASA's inventions have become indispensable elements in our lives or, at least, they have made things much easier for us, it would not seem strange that recycling urine was an ecological trend in the future.
It is a form of treatment in Ayurveda and one of India's great political leader Moraji Desai practices it. He drank a pint every day and propagated that it is the solution to many health problems of millions of Indians, at a time when Indian society was suffering from poverty and other problems.
I feel it will not cause harm but one should only do it after consultation with experienced Ayurveda practitioner.