The elixir of life!

The elixir of life!

Mangalore Today News Network

By Prof. Narendra Nayak

Mangaluru, August 5, 2019: For those who may not understand the irony of the title let me also elaborate on its other properties- panacea for 440 diseases! Yes the fluid that technically is filtered at the glomerulus, reabsorbed in the tubules, concentrated in other parts, collected in the urinary bladder and excreted through the urethra! Yes none other but the fluid you discard so mindlessly! But of course it does not apply to the fluid that you do but to that of the female of the bovine species oops not any species but only those indigenous to this subcontinent- the swadesi gaumata!

My association with this goes back to more than a decade but as they say the flavors of the season do keep coming back into fashion once in a while. My first brush with this was when Balakrishna Kulamarva who is now no more had met me with a consumer issue. His grouse was that Prajavani a leading newspaper of Karnataka in those days had carried a write up about merits of this panacea and believing that his sister who had a brain tumor had refused all treatment, started consuming copious quantities of a concoction made from it called as Gaumutra arka and as a result passed away within six months. He had brought me a copy of the write up which had made a list of the constituents of each which I still remember and thought at a detailed analysis of the claims would be in order!

Urea- a good fertilizer- yes from what? For plants who can utilize the nitrogen in that to synthesise amino acids needed for their proteins! In mammals it is the end product of protein catabolism to be excreted from the body. For the lay person let me clarify that all proteins in your diet are broken down to amino acids whose carbon skeleton can be utilized for energy while the nitrogen cannot be. This is converted to ammonia which is a toxic substance and its accumulation can cause a lot of damage particularly to the brain. Hence it is converted to urea, a very inert water soluble, non toxic substance to be excreted from the body through urine- the usual medium for exporting water soluble substances from the body.

Sodium- necessary for the body. Yes it is so. But human urine contains it too and so does common salt. In fact common salt or sodium chloride is one of the cheapest things available in the grocery shop! So one need not drink the excretory product of an animal for it!

So goes on the list and it is very clear that the one who wrote the piece does not even know fundamentals of what he is writing about. He claims that creatine in the cows urine is good for muscle while actual major constituent is creatinine which has nothing to with muscle building except that it is the end product of creatine metabolism and cannot be converted back to that by any metabolic process in the human body! Again, it is also claimed that uric acid in the urine is a good antioxidant. Uric acid such is the end product of purine catabolism and is excreted from the human body in the urine and one can only wonder why the same has to be put back! The list goes on and it would be beyond the scope of this to go into a more detailed discussion.

Again a much touted argument about the greatness of this liquid is the US patent no.6410059 for cow’s urine distillate in June, 2002 for what is called as ‘distillate’ of cow’s urine which actually is a misnomer as it is not the distillate but the residue left after distillation. This after lyophilisation yields a powder which allegedly enhances the action of antibiotics, anti fungals, anti cancer drugs etc. The funny part is that despite of the patent being more than 17 years old we are yet to see any products in the market making use of this alleged remarkable property of the desi cow’s urine.

Well, Balakrishna Kulamarva was very angry with it and hence decided to move the press council of India against this, but to no avail. So, coming back to India he started a media monitoring center at his ancestral home in Padubidri and was running it for a decade. He has a passed away and also his sister, but now the same has become a national rage and thanks to the patronage of the gullible, the largest seller of the product in the world is yes you have guessed it- Patanjali! That has also some good effects. One of our boys who is active with our movement in Tumkur was telling us that his brother who is a priest is benefitting a lot from the present demand for it. He said they have four cows which produce more gaumutra than milk and they get a higher price for it and the demand is quite good!

After skepticism came into the claims of the curative powers of this elixir and questions came about disease prevention, the spiel had to be changed! So, came a new tune! It was claimed that the body has become poisoned due to a number of pollutants and the way to get them out was to drink this magic potion. A number of ads started doing their rounds on Facebook college and Whatsapp university. It was claimed that our body was full of poisons. An example of drinking water to which a teaspoon of soluble iodine in the form of povidone idone was added and claimed to be poison was displayed. To this reddish liquid, a small quantity of what was called as elixir of mother cow was added and the color disappeared. Viola, it was the power of this magical potion at work, detoxifying the poisons was one claim of the peddler of a Karnataka based ‘manufacturer’ of the concoction. He also goes on to advertise various other products made from the same like soap, shampoo, balm for headache etc.  While the anchor for the Patanjali product is a smart young lady dressed in videsi attire showing a plastic tumbler with water with the blurb that this is pure water like how our body is at birth. Then she goes on to add a teaspoon of iodine solution, the same as mentioned above and claims that the body gets poisoned as we grow older. To this she adds a bottle capful of what she calls as gaudhan ark and the color disappears! She goes on to add more iodine which get promptly decolorized with the claim that it not only removes poison but also guards against more such entering our body! Well I made counter videos explaining the reaction after demonstrating it. It is simply high school chemistry adding sodium thiosulfate solution(commonly called as hypo) which converts iodine to iodide ion which is colorless.

But, I kept wondering where the idea for this was got and I found it again on the net in some videos of evangelists who showed clear plastic tumblers with the caption you- with water and another with a reddish color liquid called as sin! When sin was added to you naturally it took on a reddish color and you got polluted by sin! Now where is the solution? He takes another container with a clear liquid with Jesus written on it and pours it! In a jiffy you contaminated with sin get liberated from it by the power of Jesus!

While we need unity of secularism can others be far behind? There are claims of camel urine being the panacea and no prizes for guessing for whom it is! That of course reminds me of our former prime minister Morarji Bhai who was more self sufficient in this department. He did not want to consume the elixir of life of other species- he believed in what was called as auto urine therapy consuming his own urine! To which he ascribed his good health and longevity- that too in an international press meet! Well as a friend remarked what a stingy man yar! He drank a bottle of beer in 1932 and has been recycling it ever since. While this may not be true of a Gandhian who was not only teetotaler but also an opponent of alcohol and a strong votary of prohibition, the concept seems to be encouraging! But, we do hear of drug addicts doing it to recycle the used intoxicants.

Wonder how long the exploitation of the gullible will continue especially with the sponsorship of the powers that be!