Urine therapy no waste of time for one firm believer

Urine therapy no waste of time for one firm believer

By Peter Kerr

JAKARTA (JP): "Don't call me at 4:30 p.m., I'll be having my
bath," chuckles Dr. Iwan T. Budiarso over the phone as we discuss
a convenient time to visit his home in South Jakarta.

His "bath" is a daily ritual, but don't imagine him
luxuriating in perfumed bubbles or expensive essences.

The extracts massaged into Iwan's clear and remarkably
youthful skin cost him nothing, are available day and night and
require no luggage space when he travels.

Iwan, an impish 68-year-old with a beaming smile and exuberant
mannerisms, is a urine therapist. He believes fervently that
drinking your own urine cures an array of illnesses including
cancer, diabetes, heart disease and glaucoma, while rubbing it on
the body stops dandruff and psoriasis, restores hair and reduces
wrinkles and freckles.

If there is testimony to these claims, denied by conventional
medicine and greeted by most people with a wrinkled nose, it is
Iwan's own story.

In the years between 1979 and 1997 he survived four heart
attacks and had two major operations, including a quadruple
bypass performed by the late eminent Australian surgeon, Dr.
Victor Chang, but to no avail.

Four years ago friends said he looked like "the walking dead":
on oxygen several times a day and struggling to shuffle the 25
meters to his front gate.

Unable to afford more surgery, in desperation he stopped
taking conventional heart drugs and began drinking his "morning
beer".

Now the retired veterinary pathologist spends two hours a
night counseling people over the phone free of charge on how
urine therapy can change their lives.

He still goes to his doctor every month for checkups, which
show him free of the heart murmur, high blood pressure and other
former symptoms of life-threatening disease.

But worried about hurting the doctor's feelings, he has never
confided that he no longer takes his medication and has turned to
"the golden fountain".

"I've found that drinking one liter a day is enough, the rest
I use for massage," he says, reaching under the coffee table in
his front room for a large stainless-steel bowl containing a cup
and two cloth mittens.

These are Iwan's props, which he uses during his lectures to
church groups, factory employees and businesspeople. In the past
two years he has given 57 talks and interviews in Java and
Sumatra.

About 100 ml, or about half a cup, each time you urinate is
the best initial dosage, Iwan says. For the novice he suggests
mixing it with equal amounts of water, but it should be taken
within five minutes.

Don't drink the first part of the stream, he says, because it
can carry germs flushed from the urethra. The last part should
also be avoided because it can contain calcium.

Nevertheless, Iwan collects the unused urine for his "bath",
and by late afternoon each day has at least 500 ml.

Urine is what remains after the kidneys have finished
filtering impurities from the blood: 95 percent water, 2.5
percent urea (a compound formed by the decomposition of protein)
and 2.5 percent a mixture of minerals, salt, hormones and
enzymes.

Drinking small amounts, say urine therapists, maintains the
body's equilibrium and provides antibodies and other minute
particles which can fight disease.

Urea therapy, as it is also known, has been around for
centuries in both the East and West. It is thought to have
originated in certain Hindu religious rites, and has been
practiced in India for thousands of years.

Not harmful

Conventional medicine denies urine's curative properties, but
considers drinking your own urine generally unharmful unless it
is infected with germs or taken in large quantities.

However, drinking all your urine would be very dangerous,
according to Dr. Robert Farnsworth, a urologist at the Prince of
Wales and Prince Henry hospitals in Sydney, Australia.

"... if you started drinking significant volumes of your own
urine, and particularly if you drank almost all of your own
urine, essentially what you are doing is recycling your own waste
products, so it's just the same as if your kidneys are not
working -- you're going to accumulate them, and that would be
very hazardous," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
in a radio interview.

Iwan said he knew nothing about urine therapy until it was
suggested by a friend. "Are you crazy?" was his first reaction.

Until then he had little experience with alternative medicine.
His academic career, with master's and doctor of philosophy
degrees from Purdue University in Indiana, the United States,
mainly involved testing animals to find benefits for human
health.

But with nothing to lose, he took home his friend's copy of
The Water of Life, the urine therapy bible by John W. Armstrong,
and read it cover to cover.

That night he stopped taking his medication and went on a
"urine fast", drinking and gargling urine (then rinsing his mouth
with water), and claims he woke feeling fresh and with his blood
pressure normal.

Within six weeks he had determined his "maintenance dose" of
three cups a day and was "completely OK".

In typical unrestrained style, Iwan chose the retirement party
thrown for him by the Health Department's noncommunicable
diseases section to publicly praise the benefits of drinking
urine, and has never looked back.

In his lecture kit is an overhead transparency with the
saying:

"One cup a day keeps you healthy and gay.

"Three cups a day keeps your diseases away.

"Five cups a day keeps your cancer away."

Iwan counsels about 10 patients from home every night, and
uses their experiences to research new uses for urine.

He advises patients to begin urine therapy while still taking
their conventional medicines, but to gradually reduce those while
having monthly checkups with their regular doctor.

Recent successes, he says, have been three couples previously
thought to have been infertile.

He also claims to be able to treat impotency, which he says in
the cases presented to him has mostly been caused by hypertension
and diabetes.

Apart from drinking urine, Iwan also extols the advantages of
bathing in it, with a daily regimen he is happy to run through
for the camera.

Having saved his excess urine during the day, he heats it on a
portable electric stove (40 degrees Fahrenheit he finds is a
comfortable temperature), then drops in the cloth mittens.

Most of the urine is wrung from the mittens before he rubs
them over his head and body, and sits to watch television for an
hour to let the urine massage have maximum effect.

He uses an eyedropper to put urine in his ears (two drops)
before massaging the acupuncture points, then tilts his head back
and puts it in his nose (two drops), before gargling a small
amount in the back of his throat for three minutes. This, he
says, cures tinnitus, deafness and sinus problems.

He also bathes each eye using a small cup, which he says
improves his sight and wards off cataracts and other diseases.

When the hour is up he takes the bowl of urine into the
bathroom, where it is mixed with hot water and drizzled over his
body through the mittens as a "sauna".

Finally, he rinses with warm water only, no soap (although a
concession is made once a week before attending church, out of
politeness).

"You come out feeling hot and warm and sleepy, just like
you'd paid Rp 65,000 for a sauna bath," he says with glee.

"There is no other medicine that gives you a bonus, only urine
therapy.

"It makes your skin clean, and it makes your appearance very
happy because your face expresses the condition of your internal
organs.

"Your hair becomes full and black, and the wrinkles and
freckles go away."

Well, maybe, but ... doesn't it, um, smell?

"No smell!" shouts Iwan ecstatically, thrusting out his
forearm to sample.

As for his wife, herself a medical doctor, does she also drink
her own urine?

"At last she now drinks," says Iwan. "It took about four or
five months to convince her."

His wife had used conventional drops for cataracts for years,
with little effect. But she began using her urine (make sure it
is clear, because colored urine will be acidic), and "now they're
better, there is no more halo, she can see clearly and she can
drive at night".

So one more test remains: to down the advised half a cup
myself.

The verdict? Like teardrops, a little salty, just like Iwan
promised. But there sure are a lot of teardrops in 100 ml.

Iwan can be reached Monday to Friday between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.
at (021) 769-1822, or fax him at (021) 751-5568. A useful website
with more information about urine therapy is
http://utopia.knoware.nl/users/cvdk/urinetherapy/