Utility of Urine: From Antiquity to the Moon

Abstract

In ancient times, religious traditions considered urine a useful distilled product from the body. It has been used as a form of medicinal therapy for many years and is still used by millions of people worldwide who drink their urine for therapeutic purposes. The positive effects of urine on health were reported since the Renaissance for its bactericidal effects on wounds, healing effects on gastric ulcers, improved protein synthesis, regression of liver tumors, and ability to block the growth of tuberculosis mycobacteria. Urine contains a large number of chemical agents, some of which have already been identified, although others are still unknown. It is important to identify these agents through new technological methods, such as mass spectrometry, as new biomarkers of diseases. Recently, the use of urine has been discovered as a "green" element to produce electricity, agriculture fertilizers, generation of water, and building material for lunar bases for future space explorations.