Some may consider veganism an extreme diet, but this man certainly taken ‘extreme’ to another level. Since 2016, 34-year-old Harry Matadeen from the United Kingdom has been drinking his own urine. He claims that it has transformed his health for the better. His family – in particular, his sister – are quite angry with him over the habit.Â
Vegan Man Has Been Drinking His Own Urine For Nearly 7 Years
Back in 2016, Harry Matadeen was suffering from depression. He was desperate to fix his mental health problems but was struggling to find a solution. One day, he read about the supposed benefits of drinking your own urine and decided to try it. He began drinking his own aged urine (about one-month-old), and he claims that it drastically improved his health. According to Matadeen, it cured his mental health struggles almost immediately. (1)
âFrom the moment I drank the urine, it woke up my brain and removed my depression,â he said. âI felt a new sense of peace, calm and determination. I thought âwow I can make it for free and always keep myself in this happy stateâ.â
Since then he has drunk 200ml daily of his own urine. Usually, it is a combination of month-old urine and some fresh. He also uses it on his skin, both body and face. Matadeen claims it keeps him looking young and has greatly improved the elasticity of his skin. He will even occasionally when no one is looking splash a hand-cup-full of urine on his face at a urinal.
âDrinking the aged urine has revitalised my face to its youthful years and when I rub it on my face, the difference is instant and obvious,â he said. âMy skin is young, soft and glowing. Aged urine is the best food for the skin that I have found to date.â
His Family Does Not Approve
Though he claims the habit has completely turned his life around, his family does not agree. The most disgusted of them all is his sister. She is so grossed out and ashamed of her brotherâs habit that she has stopped speaking to him altogether.
âMy family never approved of it and thought it disgusting from the beginning. My sister doesn’t speak to me and one reason is my partaking in urine therapy,â Matadeen said. âI’ve chosen all of my friends now and all of them either do aged fresh urine therapy or approve of it.â
Read: Scientists Amazed At Health Of Man, 87, Who Has Not Washed For 65 Years And Eats Raw Roadkill
It Doesnât Taste As Bad As You Think
Beyond his 200 ml of urine a day, he typically only eats once. He follows a pretty strict intermittent fasting diet. He looks forward to his daily urine intake and says that it is not as bad tasting or smelling as it sounds. In fact, he says he even enjoys the taste and smell of his own aged urine now because of the neuro-associations with how it makes him feel.
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âFresh urine is never as bad as you imagine â it is neutral smelling and not a bad taste unless you are really toxic,â he claimed. âBut the aged urine is always smelly and the taste is a refined and acquired one. I’ll just say it takes some getting used to.â
Is Drinking Urine Actually Good For You?
Matadeen, among others, have written books about the so-called benefits of drinking oneâs own urine. Naturally, they claim some pretty outrageous things. These include urine reducing the risk of diseases such as cancer and Alzheimers, as well as curing chronic pain. (2)
The reality is that there is no scientific evidence to support the claim that drinking urine is in any way beneficial to your health. In fact, research actually suggests the opposite. Urine is a waste product of the body. When our kidneys process everything that we consume in a day, they filter out everything that we donât need, including toxins both taken in and produced naturally in the body, and secrete them via our urine. Drinking urine means you are potentially re-introducing harmful bacteria and toxins that your body already worked hard to eliminate. This can put a lot of unnecessary stress on your kidneys, who now have to do the job all over again. (3)
On top of this, drinking your own urine, or urine therapy can actually dehydrate you. Urine concentrates salts and minerals. By drinking it, you may be only dehydrating yourself further. To process salt, your kidneys require a certain amount of water. The more salt you take in, the more water you will then have to pee out. By drinking in your own salt-filled urine, you will then have to pee out even more water. Even the United States army instructs their soldiers to avoid drinking their own urine in a survival situation. So should you be using it as some sort of cure-all health tonic? Probably not.
Keep Reading: 10 Ways Your Body May Be Telling You Somethingâs Wrong
Sources
- “Vegan, 34, who drinks a glass of his own month-old URINE every day reveals his sister hates him because of his disgusting habit (which he insists cured his depression and left him looking 10 years younger).” Daily Mail. Emily Craig. April 28, 2022.
- “Urine therapy.” Wikipedia
- “What Are the Risks and Benefits of Drinking Urine?.” Healthline. Corinne O’Keefe Osborn. March 21, 2018.
