Urine is a medicinal, cleansing, and nourishing food

Cletus_the_Foetus (who has a really cool name) said in the How to drink urine to survive node, and I quote: “Never drink urine -- it's chock full of poisons.”

Tsk tsk, foetus. Don’t you know that Urine is a medicinal, cleansing, and nourishing food with the surprising ability to cure an amazing variety of ills, which has been scientifically-proven, and medically-documented.

You see, these Jesus dudes are going around saying that the life ("life-force") of the flesh is in the blood, and as urine comes from the blood, it contains that very life-force...

Jesus actually said "If you believe in me, you will never thirst."
"Rivers of living water shall flow from your bellies." (John 7:38)

Urine, the Fountain of Youth!.. the sentence condenses the entire concept, as one's own urine is apparently each individual's own best personal medicine, because each person's own urine contains a variety of antibodies to specific ills, which are unique to each individual. It is written that medical researchers have discovered many elements (from the blood) that are in urine, have enormous medicinal value, and "when they are re-introduced into the body, they boost the body's immune defenses and stimulate healing in a way that nothing else does."

So, people do this. This strange behavior, called "urine therapy," or "auto-immune therapy," or "intrinsic medicine," or simply "UT," and also known in India as "amaroli” (the practice itself) and "Shivambu" (urine, the "water of Shiva"), has a well-documented, proven record of its power to heal an amazing variety of ills, with no negative or harmful effects. Coen van der Kroon's book "The Golden Fountain" lists around 175 different ailments or diseases of the human body, that have been cured by urine therapy, which includes drinking, massaging with-, and bathing in- urine. (Also used for nose drops, eardrops, eye drops, foot baths, eye cups, douche, enemas, etc).

The main theory is that it helps build immunity to disease, much like a vaccination. Martha Christy goes into all of this, and partly focuses on its use as a cosmetic, among other things. She recommends starting off with just a few drops, applied topically to the skin. Urine is helpful for acne, eczema, psoriasis, ringworm, sores, fungal infections, insect bites, snake bites, wounds, burns, abrasions, and even gangrene. Urine is also is a rich source of hormones, especially DHEA and melatonin, and other sex hormones including testosterone, androgen, and estrogen. It is also a rich source of enzymes, vitamins and minerals, and the amino acid creatine (used by body-builders, in the form of an extract from beef). Urine is also a source of allantoin (also found in comfrey and aloe vera, known as 'bone-knit,' in comfrey, and useful in aloe for preventing sunburn).

Urine contains elements found in the diet, mixed with elements of the blood, and filtered by the liver and kidneys, before flowing out of the body. Most of the toxic matter (if any) in the food we eat is filtered out of the blood, through the liver and kidneys. Any toxic matter that makes its way to the urine would be highly diluted. The end product, urine, is actually less toxic and more alive than much of the food and drink that goes into the body. The body is even able to digest junk foods and devitalized liquids, and produce from it a valuable, medicinal drink. Urine is medicinal, cleansing, and nourishing. Think how much more valuable and medicinal is the urine from healthy, clean blood, which is fed by pure, natural, organic, raw foods. Drinking your own urine makes you think seriously about what you eat.

"Far from being toxic", urine (which is about 95% water) may actually contain some of the purest water that we can drink. It is a byproduct of our blood, filtered by the liver and kidneys, and the cleaner the blood is, the healthier the urine will be. Even urine from relatively unhealthy blood contains valuable immunological factors that can improve health if recycled. If you continue to recycle your urine, the color and taste continually gets more clear and pure, the more it is recycled. Thus, empirical observation proves that urine-drinking has a cleansing effect on the blood. Supposedly, even in the worst cases (where the urine is dark and cloudy, and smells bad), it can become totally clear in only a matter of only a few days at the most. Thus, drinking one's own urine is a very powerful blood cleanser and purifier.

I still don't think I'll do it.

^{This enlightening and somewhat frightening information was procured largely from jesus-diet.com}

I have no medical education whatsoever, so I have no real basis to refute dustfromamoths writeup. I can, however, recognize false scientific reasoning when I see it:

"Far from being "toxic," urine (which is about 95% water) may actually contain some of the purest water that we can drink."

Right. Whenever you add anything to pure water, that makes it impure. Therefore it's nonsense to speak of 95% pure water; the 5% other stuff is exactly what makes it impure!
No doubt there is some very pure water present in the most polluted rivers, but that does not make them any less toxic...

This just can't be right.

Don't you know that Urine is a medicinal, cleansing, and nourishing food with the surprising ability to cure an amazing variety of ills, which has been scientifically-proven, and medically-documented.

Okay, I am really doubting this, but you say you have scientific evidence...

You see, the life ("life-force") of the flesh is in the blood, and as urine comes from the blood, it contains that very life-force...

Hmm... "life-force", eh? We never covered life-force in my biology classes...

Jesus actually said "If you believe in me, you will never thirst." "Rivers of living water shall flow from your bellies." (John 7:38)

Jesus was a scientist? I thought he was a carpenter. Now while Jesus has lots of great things to say, I know from my past experiences with Him and his followers (specifically those 12 guys he hung out with that can't seem to quite get their stories straight...) that you can't take everything they say literally.

But here is the killer. While urine does contain lots of vitamins and minerals and hormones and other goodies, they are there because you body doesn't need them. That's right, the whole purpose of your excretatory system is to get rid of junk you don't need. Want to do a little experiment? Take a couple of grams of vitamin C. You will urinate far more frequently and if you tested your urine you would see that it has a lot of vitamin C in it. You body didn't need all of that extra. Now sure, you could save up this vitamin C spiked urine and drink it instead of OJ the next morning...

Especially funny is this statement:

Urine contains elements found in the diet, mixed with elements of the blood, and filtered by the liver and kidneys, before flowing out of the body. Most of the toxic matter (if any) in the food we eat is filtered out of the blood, through the liver and kidneys.

And where exactly does all of this toxic matter that our body has filtered out go? Does it just stay in the kidneys like the junk my PuR water filter on my sink does? Well, that can't be. I have to change my Pur filter every couple of months, and I haven't had to change my kidneys yet. I've got it! The kidneys must take all of that toxic shit and put it in my urine, which I dutifully dispose of several times a day!

So, I must say that my informed opinion is that none should "recycle" their urine, especially by ingesting it. Take my opinion for what it is worth, but I hope you can see that it is more firmly based in science and reason than those of the urine drinkers...

According to Catullus 39 (the Egnatius poem) Spaniards brushed their teeth with human urine (Catullus found the practice repulsive); it also worked quite well as a mouthwash. There is evidence that Roman women prized imported Portuguese urine for its strength during the first century-- probably a result of the long overland supply route than to any real ethnic characteristic.

Urine saw use as the active component in toothpaste and mouthwash until late in the 18th century-- ammonia gave it its cleansing power. Ammonia continues to be an ingredient in most modern dentrifice.

As a person who has had some medical training, I would like to say this -

The function of the kidneys is to remove waste matter.

Urine contains stuff like urea, broken down drugs, metabolites of all sorts. In a person with normal functioning kidneys, urine consists of the what's left of the ultrafiltrate from the blood, after the good stuff is reabsorbed and after even more bad stuff is secreted into it. It is by no means pure water.

I can see where drinking small amounts of urine might be reasonable in desperate situations such as being stranded in a desert with no water (if you have the equipment, you should follow the instructions in How to drink urine to survive), but to advocate drinking urine on a regular basis for health reasons is most certainly a matter of pseudoscience and disinformation.

You have been warned.