Urine is a nitrogen-rich liquid byproduct created by the kidneys—it's the body's primary means of expelling water-soluble chemicals generated through the metabolic process. Urine is actually a secondary waste disposal mechanism. Blood first passes through the liver where where toxins, dead cells, and various waste is removed and eliminated. then pumped through the kidneys where excess fluids and water-soluble molecules—nitrogen, vitamins, minerals, proteins, antibodies, and other metabolites—are extracted and transferred to the bladder to await expulsion.
Urine therapy or urotherapy, (also urinotherapy or uropathy or auto-urine therapy) is the application of human urine for medicinal or cosmetic purposes, including drinking of one's own urine and massaging one's skin, or gums, with one's own urine.
What is urine therapy?
If that's the case, and your pee potentially contains beneficial compounds, why not have a sip? You wouldn't be the first. Urophagia, the practice of consuming urine, is more often called auto-urine therapy (or just urine therapy) by those that partake and has been an established practice for millennia.
It was first described in the Damar Tantra, an ancient sanskrit text considered an offshoot of the canon Hindu scriptures, which promoted massaging the skin with fresh urine as a sort of cure-all. Subsequent texts suggest mixing it with food, liquid, or other medical tinctures as a cure for cancer
Don't drink your pee even when urine a pinch
In fact, a host of medical professionals have concluded that consuming your pee, using it as a tooth whitener (it does contain ammonia), or otherwise ingesting it is a rather bad idea. For example, peeing on jellyfish stings is counterproductive as the sodium in your piss can reactivate embedded nemocysts (the actual stingers) worsening the pain while the bacteria present in your urine are afforded a free trip into your bloodstream.
Nor is it an effective anti-cancer agent. It was once thought that since urine is laced with cancer antigens, reintroducing it to your digestive system could help boost the body's immuno-production. The American Cancer Society disagrees, stating:
Side Effects and Warnings
Common adverse effects of urine therapy may include diarrhea, itch, pain, fatigue, soreness of the shoulder, and fever. These side effects may last three to seven days or up to six months. Aged urine may be caustic on the skin.
Urine therapy may be unsafe when used in children, individuals taking medications that are excreted in the urine as unchanged or active metabolites, individuals with gastrointestinal problems, or pregnant women. Avoid in patients who have urinary tract or kidney infection because the urine will contain bacteria.
The Damar Tantra, an ancient Sanskrit work, says that fresh urine will cause muscle wasting when left on the skin if the urine has not been boiled down to one fourth its volume (vs. 49 of the Shivambu Kalpa Vidhi in the Damar Tantra).