I’m sure we have all heard the rumor that if you are severely dehydrated and have no other source of water, a good way to keep yourself alive is to drink your own pee. Obviously this is not a situation that many of us will have to deal with in our lifetimes, but should we actually listen to this old wives tale?
While it is true that pee is sterile and 95 percent water, it could actually dehydrate you more, much like drinking saltwater would! The last five percent of your pee are the toxins your body is trying to get rid of like chloride, sodium, and potassium. By drinking your pee, you are effectively putting the waste your body is trying to get rid of (and for good reason) back into your system. Sodium draws water out of cells, so having extra sodium in your body can further dehydrate you. With too much potassium in your body, you could have a heart attack.
Despite all these dangers, however, there are people who advocate for drinking your own pee under dire circumstances. A man in china once survived for six days while trapped under a piece of a ceiling that fell during an earthquake, and sure enough, he attributes his survival to the fact that he drank his own pee. There are many more cases like this found around the world.
So which do we listen to? The theoretical idea of what would happen if we drank our own pee or the first hand experience of what men have done to survive. I think that in this situation, we should drink our own pee. The chances are that doing nothing would also cause you to die, since humans can only live three days without water. It would be very difficult to do nothing while the hours tick by waiting for your body to shut down. I think that it is better to risk drinking your pee and hoping that it will help rather than doing nothing and knowing that you will die in three days.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2008/05/the_yellow_liquid_diet.html
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-03/fyi-it-ever-ok-drink-your-own-urine
I definitely wouldnt have pondered this topic on my own but it is interesting nonetheless. I have never drank my own pee so I cant really make any inference on what it would do. But I agree with you in a life or death situation, I’d drink the pee. Check out this story of a man who survived after drinking his own urine. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/man-forced-drink-urine-left-cell-days-forgetful-dea-agents-article-1.1071275
It is crazy how powerful our own bodily waste is. I have heard many things that urine can do, including helping stings. My brother was actually stung buy a man of war jellyfish, and to take the sting away and the venom out of his arm, he was told to pee on himself. He never actually did it, but scientists have proven it to help. Some say that when the jellyfish gets away, some stingers are left on the skin, and the salt balance in urine can take off the stinger without activating it. Others say that this is actually a myth, and the chemical changes in the urine can actually set off the stinger. I am curious as to whether urine actually has healing benefits to stings.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/31427/does-peeing-jellyfish-sting-actually-help
I have also heard that pee is good for your skin and that it can be a good treatment for acne. Urine therapists argue that pee contains a large variety of important enzymes, nutrients, hormones, immune defense agents, and natural antibodies (http://theacnezone.com/urine-therapy-for-acne/). Therapists encourage people to think of urine as the body rejecting lots of good stuff that it didn’t need at the time but could make good use of later. Also, analyses show that urine contains thousands of constituents that can all be found in edible food and are non-toxic to the human body and some are used in medicine. Urea is an organic compound in urine which is FDA approved and one of the strongest non-toxic anti-viral agents in existence. Urea, in one study, killed the polio and rabies virus at an impressive rate. Urea is also found in many drugs used for tumors and cancers.
Although this is quite gross to think about, I think that drinking your pee may be in fact a good thing to do if you really need to survive and have no other resources. In this article, the links below, they state that, “Urine therapy has been used to overcome diseases such as Arthritis, Cancer, Hepatitis, Multiple Sclerosis, Eczema, Psoriasis, Diabetes, Herpes and adrenal failure.” I’m not positive if I believe this or if I’d want to have to find out if it’s true. Either way, it is definitely interesting to know that drinking your urine can have so many benefits.
http://www.extremehealthradio.com/why-you-should-start-drinking-your-own-pee-the-many-benefits-of-urine-therapy/