The Department of Policies, Laws and Regulations has just released a long list of a total of 748 associations that earn money through welcoming new members. Included on that list is the China Urine Therapy Association, leading many to wonder, just the heck does that group do?
Well, some people try to become more healthy simply through regular exercise and eating healthy. Others in China try out different kinds of bizarre traditional Chinese therapies that are sure to weird you out — including urine therapy.
“It’s been 23 years. I’ve been drinking urine since I was 48. Urine can cure all illnesses, like back problems, emphysema and farsightedness,” one old man from Chengdu, who is a chief managing director of the China Urine Therapy Association, told a Chengdu Economic Daily reporter. He confesses that he is obsessed with drinking urine. After his daughter had gotten wind of his obsession, she nearly broke off all contact with him.
Here’s his unique health regimen:
1)He wakes up around 5 to 6 a.m. every day.
2)He pours water and puts a kilo of monk fruit into a porcelain jar the night before and he drinks it the next morning.
3)He only chugs down his own urine after 5 p.m.
“I drink 500 to 1,000 ml of urine five to six times a day,” he said. After tasting his own pee, he says that it tastes a little sour because he drinks too little water.
When asked why he started urine therapy, he explains that a urine therapy campaign came to his neighborhood in 1993. He bought a book on the subject for 7.8 yuan and began reading. After reading over it thoroughly three times, he started drinking his own pee. He claims that after drinking urine for just three months, he no longer needed to wear glasses when playing mahjong.
Even though the old man claims that urine therapy has made him healthier than he has ever been, it has not actually been officially proven to be medically effective or beneficial. Wang Xiaodong, a doctor at the Chengdu First People’s Hospital said that he wouldn’t advocate urine therapy to patients because urine consists of human waste which is not beneficial to health at all. He emphasized that despite certain advantages of drinking urine written about in ancient books, there’s no concrete evidence to prove whether those advantages are valid or not.
Another expert from West China Hospital added that there are some chemicals, like urokinase which are good for health, but they aren’t easy to extract it from the urine.
The old man is not the only one that claims that urine therapy is good for health. Back in 2014, a member of the China Urine Therapy Association, who was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism, made the news by insisting that he had been cured by urine therapy. Though, he seemed to deliberately exclude one little fact: he had been taking anti-hyperthyroidism medicine.
Drinking urine might seem a bit extreme to most, but not everyone thinks so. Last year, an intrepid British reporter for MailOnline sipped his own piss. Bravo!
Bottoms up!
By Katie Ngai
[Images via 365qilu.com]
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