May 13, 2019 May 13, 2019 by tatvamasee
Gaumutra: The Scientific Desi Dawa
Source: – Four Pursuits Medium Page.
The Ancient, Ayurvedic Applications And Scientific Study of Gaumutra
Cow urine since ancient times has been used to treat various ailments. Cow urine has got a special in Ayurveda and in fact other traditional medical sciences as well.
But these days, even the idea that an animal's urine can be therapeutic makes a lot of us puke. Because urine has a connotation of disgust attached to it since it is considered a toxic waste from animals.
The objective of this blog is to summarize the Ayurvedic knowledge about cow urine applications and explore its scientific research and studies.
Not just cow urine (Gaumutra), Ayurveda has talked about urine from eight animals to be of medical use. In fact, in Ayurveda, drinking the urine of oneself has also been proclaimed to cure numerous diseases.
Ancient Ayurvedic texts like Shushrut Samhita, Charak Samhita, Atharva Veda,Astanga Hridaya, Vridhabhagabhatt, Amritasagar, Bhavprakash which are rich Hindu scriptures with medical knowledge, hold gaumutra in high regards due to its wide range of medicinal properties and applications.
Not just Indian but ancient Chinese, Egyptian and Aztec civilisations were also using urine therapy.
Texts like Shushrut Samhita talks in detail about surgical instruments and procedures. Shushrut mentions detailed surgical and plastic surgery process in his book written almost 2700 years ago.
These texts also talk about urine therapy and hail cow urine as equivalent to nectar.
Ayurveda is the oldest medical system from almost 5000 BC (The Vedic Period).
Ayurveda's way of looking at health and healing is very different from most contemporary systems. It incorporates standard medical practices, with spiritual healing, mantra chanting, herbal remedies for holistic well being (physical, emotional and spiritual).
As Ayurveda talks about not just gross (स्थूल) body but also subtle (सूक्ष्म) body, its layers, the influence of subtle forces like vibrations, energy and aura on ones well being. It becomes nearly impossible for modern science to study it and validate it accurately.
Nevertheless, in this blog, we would attempt to summarize the Ayurvedic assessment and application of cow urine in the modern era and its assessment by the scientific communities.
Gaumtura: The Ayurveda Way
Cow urine is part of "PANCHGAVYA CHIKITSA".
Panchagavya is a combination of five items that we get from Cow, cow urine (Gomutra), cow milk (Godugdha), its curd (Godadhi), ghee (Goghrit) and dung (Gomaya).
And "PANCHGAVYA CHIKITSA" is the medical science where diseases are cured using a combination of these five.
In Sushruta Samhita, Gaumutra (Cow urine) has been described as the most effective substance of animal origin with innumerable therapeutic importance. It has been mentioned that it can cure diseases like Kushtha (leprosy), Kandu, Udarrog, Colic, Abdominal tumour, Enlargement of the abdomen and Flatulence.
Panchagavya is not just used in the treatment of humans but also animal and plant health.
Holy texts like Charak Samhita, Ashtanga Hridya and Shushrut Samhita has mentioned that Panchagavya can treat curable and incurable diseases.
They provide various formulations of gaumutra mixed with various herbs panchgavya for treatment of a wide range of ailments.
In recent times, modern science had started acknowledging the power of Ayurveda and other ancient Indian texts.
Hence, for decades even western scientists have been conducting research on Ayurvedic principles, formulations and medicines.
The acceptance of Ayurveda has increased widely in the west.
As modern science is gaining the capacity to understand and study them, they are becoming widespread.
Just like Einstein's theory of gravitational waves was proved experimentally almost 100 years after it was proposed.
Modern science is now gaining some capability to decipher these thousands of years old texts.
Even now, we can't understand, decipher and authenticate them completely due to our limited knowledge and technical ability.
Biochemical Composition
Let's first see the chemical composition of a healthy cow before we move on to its medicinal properties and scientific evidence to support it.
Healthy cow urine has a volume of 17–45 ml/Kg/day with a specific gravity ranging from 1.025- 1.045. Its pH ranges between 7.4 to
8.4 with seasonal variations.
Cow urine's biochemical studies have shown it contains sodium, silicon, chlorine, magnesium, citric, succinic, sulphur, Vitamin A, B, C, D, E, minerals, manganese,phosphate, lactose, carbolic acid, iron, different types of enzymes, creatinine, 24 types of salt and various hormones.
Deficiency or excess of any of these micronutrients, enzymes and hormones inside the body causes various kinds of disorders.
Consumption of urine from a healthy cow in regular doses has been reported to restore the balance of all these critical substances in the body.
Hence, plays a direct or indirect role in the curing of a wide range of curable and seemingly incurable diseases.
Urea is a strong antimicrobial agent which ends protein metabolism. Uric acid has also been found to provide antimicrobial activity and fight infections. Iron produces red blood cells, whereas Copper controls fat deposition. Sodium and potassium act as key body electrolyte.
Popular Applications of Cow Urine
Although, as per Ayurveda there are numerous uses of cow urine. But we would discuss here the popular usage of cow urine which are supported by research.
Antiseptic: Cow urine is a good alternative to stringent antiseptic lotions. Cow urine is equally if not more adept to aiding wound healing. Applying gaumutra externally on the wound has shown significant healing. Healing time has observed to be lesser compared to antiseptic creams.
Preventing Antibiotic Resistance: Antibiotic resistance is one of the major problems that the current medical science is facing. A lot of bacteria have become adept at fighting these antibiotic due to their escalating use by the medical industry. This rampant use of antibiotics has made them become resistant to it. They aren't as effective as they used to be. Research has found that gaumutra especially post photoactivation and purification it is capable of countering antibiotic resistance.
Cow urine is found to be effective against drug-resistant bacteria strains.
Antimicrobial Agent: Owing to the presence of aurum hydroxide, urea, creatinine, calcium, carbolic acid, various phenols, and manganese gaumutra posses various antimicrobial properties.
Cow urine as an antimicrobial agent has the power to work against pathogens like E. coli, Salmonella typhi, Proteus vulgaris, Bacillus cereus and Staphylococcus epidermidis etc.
It has been found in different studies that gaumutra is comparable with ofloxacin, ciprofloxacin, ampicillin, chloramphenicol, nalidixic acid, rifampicin, tetracycline, streptomycin, cefpodoxime and gentamycin in terms of its antimicrobial activity.
Bioenhancer
Substances that have the property of improving the bioavailability (The proportion of drug which enters circulation and is absorbed by the body) of another substance are known as Bioenhancers. Ayurveda calls this phenomenon as 'yogvahi'. In yogavahi medicines with poor bioavailability are introduced with a bioenhancer to increase its effectiveness and decrease side effects.
Cow urine is the only product of animal origin which can act as a bioenhancer, as an antimicrobial agent and as an anti-cancer agent as well.
CUD increases the activity of rifampicin by about 5–7 folds against E. coli and 3–11 folds against Gram-positive bacteria. Cow urine has been granted US Patents (6896907, 6410059) for its medicinal properties, particularly as a bioenhancer along with antibiotics, antifungal and anticancer drugs.
Fungicide Agent
Gaumutra has been found to be more effective, stable and efficient than neem and lemon juice, for topping the growth of Malassezia fungi that cause dandruff. Gaumutra has been reported to keep this pathogen at bay for almost 4–5 days. Cow urine has also been reported to remarkably inhibited other fungi such as Aspergillus, Rhizopus, and A. niger.
Anthelmintic Properties
Cow urine has found to be more effective than piperazine citrate as an anthelmintic (Substances that work against parasitic worms and parasites in the body) agent.
Research has shown that various disease-causing parasites can be effectively dealt with a regular dose of cow urine. Different parasites in different parts of the body like intestine can cause various health-related problems like dysentery, abdominal pain and loss of nutrients in the body. Cow urine helps in fighting such diseases by fighting the parasites that cause them. In fact different compsitions of panchgavya have found to be effective as anthelmintic agent.
Anticancer properties
Cow urine owing to its composition and antioxidant properties point towards potential anti-cancer powers of cow urine.
Cow urine possesses anti-cancer properties. Research works carried out by Go-Vigyan Anusandhan Kendra (Cow Science Research Center) at Nagpur revealed the beneficial properties of cow urine in the treatment of cancers.
Further extensive research on cow urine therapy against fighting cancer carried out by Scientists of Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (CIMAP), CSIR Center at Lucknow, along with collaboration with Go-Vigyan Anusandhan Kendra, Nagpur.
Studies highlight the role of cow urine in curing cancers and that cow urine enhances the efficacy and potency of anti-cancer drugs.
Various well documented cases, case studies are there in which patients who were terminally ill were cured using cow urine based therapy.
For example a 63 year old woman from Kasargod district of Kerala state in November 2003 was presented to Kasargod Institute of Medical Sciences, Kasragod, Kerala, with stage IV squamous cell carcinoma of tonsil. Conventional methods were not helping. She was treated completely in 10 months with cow urine therapy.
Mr Kamlesh kumar Agarwal, a native of Kareli Dist. Narsinghpur (MP) suffered from a cancer near the kidney. His kidney became dysfunctional and inspite of different known cancer- therapies. He was then treated with Kamdhenu ark (Ark made of urine of kamdhenu).
An Indian American, Amit Vaidya, who was a terminally ill last stage cancer patient was also treated with the help of panchgavya chikitsa in India. He has even written a best selling book about it, Holy Cancer: How a Cow Saved My Life.
A pharmaceutical composition comprising an effective amount of bioactive fraction from cow urine distillate (CUD) as a pharmaceutically acceptable additive was tested and applied for a US patent. The invention relates to an absolutely novel use of CUD as an activation enhancer and availability facilitator for bioactive molecules such as anti-infective and anti-cancer drugs. It was found that the urine distillate effectively reduced the dosage of drug needed for the therapies.
Gaumutra has been found to repair the damaged DNA. Hence, it can be very effective for the cancer prevention and therapy.
It can reduce the spread of malignant cancers and help fighting tumors.
Scientists have found that pesticides even at very low doses cause apoptosis of lymphocytes and tissues through fragmentation of DNA.
Gaumtura helps the lymphocytes in surviving by inhibiting their apoptosis and by repairing the damaged DNA and is, therefore, effective as anti-cancer therapy.
Antidiabetic Properties
The antidiabetic effects of Cow urine have also been studied in comparison to a standard diabetes drug, glibenclamide.
Cow urine Distillate was found to significantly reduce the elevated blood glucose, serum cholesterol and serum triglycerides levels compared to the drug.
Immunostimulant
Cow urine has also been found to shown immune booster properties. It shows immunostimulant activity in both plants and animal.
Cow urine has been found to exhibit better effect on immune system compaired to methanol, ethyl acetate, aqueous and acetone fractions of cow-urine.
Antioxidant Properties
Cow urine, its distillate, re-distillate and residues, all exhibit antioxidant properties.
Gaumutra is the source of natural antioxidant.
It can be used as for preventing or slowing oxidative stress-related degenerative diseases.
Cow urine is also taken regularly without having any illness. It helps in maintaining the homeostasis of the body. It lowers cholesterol level, relieves tension, enhancing the functioning of the liver, and slows down the ageing process. Cow urine is also taken regularly without having any illness. It strengthens the brain, heart and also destroys the toxic effects of medicinal residues in the body. It boosts immunity by fighting and removing toxic substances as it has antioxidant properties, and scavenges free radicals.
Cow urine has been used for curing various diseases in Ayurveda, Chinese, Nigerian and various other folk and ancient medical sciences.
Now as the western scientists are embracing Ayurveda more and more products based on Ayurvedic principles and formulations are coming into global the market.
Various researches in and outside India are going on to validate the medicinal properties and formulations of cow urine as suggested by Ayurveda.
There are well-documented cases and researches where cow urine has been found of immense therapeutic help and even has been reported to cure seemingly incurable diseases. We have discussed some of these cases in the blog.
There is evidence to support antiseptic, antimicrobial, anti-fungus, antioxidant, anthelmintic, disinfectant and antidiabetic properties of cow urine.
Anticancer properties of cow urine have also been demonstrated. Whether it may cure cancer completely on its own or not needs more research and data. But it can definitely be helpful as a supportive therapy owing to its antioxidant, antimicrobial and bioenchancing and other properties.
Ayurveda and modern medical sciences if work together in alignment, might come close to a solution that might serve a well major proportion of cancer patients well.
Because, cancer is a complicated disease and everyone's body is different and hence, how one's body may react to one treatment, no one can guess.
Hence, having alternative paths and supportive therapies is helpful.
But we need to have a more open outlook towards the possibilities of modern science and Ayurveda both.
It is understandable that we don't accept something without enough evidence but it is not right to dismiss even the possibility of something.
Because numerous technologies and discoveries which are now a reality were laughed off at one point by different intellectuals.
It is not a thumb rule that anything that seems more modern, technically complicated has to be better than simple and ancient solutions.
With time the advancement of technology and continuous research, we would have more data to prove or disprove the role of cow urine in curing incurable diseases on a wider set of audiences.
But till then, we can't dismiss the stories, ancient texts anecdotes and well-documented case studies of patients who have been treated using cow urine therapy. As they say, half knowledge is a dangerous thing.
Our knowledge about the human body, cow urine and cancer is not even half.
Before, making very strong claims in either the direction we need to sure.
Hopefully, in years to come, we would see more researches, evidence and acceptance of panchgavya chikitsa as mainstream medical science.
Till then, be open, explore and find out yourself what suits your body.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4566776/ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229596973_Anti-Cancer_Activity_of_Cow_Urine_Current_Status_and_Future_Directions
https://www.auajournals.org/doi/full/10.1016/j.juro.2016.02.100
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286375487_Diversified_uses_of_cow_urine
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229596973_Anti-Cancer_Activity_of_Cow_Urine_Current_Status_and_Future_Directions
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/238737023_Antioxidant_and_Antimicrobial_Activities_of_Cow_Urine
ANTIBACTERIAL ACTIVITY OF COW URINE AGAINST SOME PATHOGENIC AND NON-PATHOGENIC BACTERIA
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