Will drinking urine affect the health of Tamil Nadu farmers?

Government better take action to end the plight of the farmers.

For the past 40 days we have been witness to the plight of the Tamil Nadu farmers who had been protesting outside the PM's office to garner his attention and state their demands. Some of the demands of these farmers are: a loan waiver, a revised drought relief package and better support prices for their produce. While Tamil Nadu chief minister K Palaniswami on Sunday met with protesting farmers from his state at the Jantar Mantar and assured help, it was after the farmers had taken to drink their own urine to draw the attention of the officials. Probably, this is one of the most degradable acts committed by them after parading naked, trying to eat rats among other ways to showcase their protest.

However, P Ayyakkannu, who is leading the protest, said that since the Union government is not giving them water. So they are consuming urine. While consumption of urine might sound gross but this practice has been around for years in our country. In fact, many claim that urine therapy is one of the most miraculous therapies that can claim almost anything. In fact, there is almost 100,000 hits of the search for 'urine therapy' on Google and the over 150 videos on the subject on YouTube are 'waters out of thine own cistern' is still, or again, rather popular today.

But here is why consumption of urine might be injurious to health in one way or the other:

Urine is mostly water, lots of urea (25g/d) and uric acid (1g/d), creatinine (1.5g), various electrolytes (10g/d, mostly NaCl), phosphate and organic acids (3g/d), only trace amounts of proteins (40-80mg/d, most of which are albumin, and only insignificant amounts of antibodies or enzymes), varying traces of (not necessarily active) hormones, glucose and water-soluble vitamins. Urine is sterile where it is produced in the kidney, but once it has left the body, it is usually contaminated [1]. However, it is not toxic per se. That said consumption of urine even if it doesn't seem potent isn't a good practice.

Another study pointed out that continuous consumption of urine can lead to increase of carcinogenic substances in the body and might give rise to bladder cancer as opposed to what is thought about urine therapy [2]. Sure, the farmers have drunk urine only to showcase their agitation. But one should not forget that it is an excreted product, something that the body isn't going to utilise anymore. Putting it inside the body is definitely going to harm a person.

While the farmer's agitation is justified however drinking urine might not be the right move in terms of their health as they are in a longstanding protest without food and water. We hope the government takes notice of this soon to end their plight.

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Reference:

[1] Loeffler, J. M. (2010). The Golden Fountain-Is urine the miracle drug no one told you about?. Pan, 5, 13.

[2] 1: Braver DJ, Modan M, Ch trit A, Lusky A, Braf Z. Drinking, micturition habits, and urine concentration as potential risk factors in urinary bladder cancer. J Natl Cancer Inst. 1987 Mar;78(3):437-40. PubMed PMID: 3469457.