Growing up, I remember having an argument with my mom about how soldiers survived in the desert and she mentioned that soldiers could drink their urine since it was sterile. As a child I believed this, and I wasn't the only one who believed it because for the majority of the last 100 years, the majority of the science world and the medical field believed that urine was sterile.
We are an organism that house both non-living and living being alike, housing bacteria, viruses, and fungi known as microbiota, with each having different functions including wading against infection, balancing our mental health, food digestion and so on. There are different microbes in different part of the body and this was the reason why it was believed in the 19th century as far back as Louis Pasteur that there were no microbes in the urinary system and this was because growing microbes at this time could only be done by growing content from swab on petri dishes where they are cultured.
Since we were using culturing bacteria, the ones grown from the urinary system didn't come up with any result and so scientists believed and concluded it was sterile. Scientists believed this even until as recent as in 2008 when the mapping of the microbiome was still being done. With improved genetic sequencing it was now easy to find microbes from the DNA and RNA of substances, and it was with this that we were able to take sample from urine and check for microbes which we found.
Urinary Tract Disease not Sexually transmitted disease is the 12th leading cause of death in the world and we have some microbes that are landlords in our urinary tract and one of them is E.coli which is a normal microbiome in our urinary tract but this bacteria can go rogue and can lead to UTI making it the cause of about 75% of all UTIs. About 150 million people suffer from UTIs yearly and it can put people up for risks of kidney stones. Another landlord in the urinary tract is Lactobacillus which is the bacteria you might find in butter, yogurt, and milk.
The two landlords I have mentioned that lives in the urinary tract are in a tug of war between one another. Lactobacillus is responsible for making the urinary tract acidic which prevents the growth and thriving of E.coli in the urinary tract. Scientists are looking to use probiotics that contain lactobacillus to prevent E.coli causing disease by making the urinary tract acidic but this is still being researched.
If you hear someone say that your urine is sterile and you can drink it instead of water because it is even more clean than water, please just avoid experimenting it because it will be the best decision you make at that point in time. Your urine is not sterile, it is as colonized by microbes as any other part of your body.
REFERENCE
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4864995/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3426293
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10384867/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10341809/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9492590/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5159206/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4659483/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK11791/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10252372/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6605016/
I can't say I'm surprised by this discovery, we're always gaining new information that changes what we previously believed. It didn't really make sense that urine would be entirely sterile. Considering it's also a detox pathway for our bodies, I wouldn't want to be drinking it if I could help it, either. There are some weird suggestions going around that drinking it is good for your health. 😱
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