In perhaps one of the wildest claims to get rid of acne, one woman says in a Facebook video that she drinks her dog’s urine for a clear complexion and to evade depression.
“Many of you have asked me how I always look so good, how my makeup always looks so perfect, or how I always have this natural glow,” the woman who goes by the name Lynn Lew starts off her video. “Here’s my secret.”
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With that, she walks her dog over to a tree and appears to collect its urine in a plastic cup. When the dog is finished, she holds up the clear cup and appears to chug the entire glass, explaining that it helps her with depression and acne.
“Until I first drank my dog’s pee, I was depressed, I was sad, and I had bad acne,” Lew says after finishing the cup. “Dog pee also has vitamin A in it, vitamin E in it, and it has 10 grams of calcium, and it’s also proven to help cure cancer.”
She swipes her finger for the last drop inside the cup and licks it off. “And that is why I look so much better than y’all,” she said at the conclusion of the video.
Many of the comments on the video openly mock the situation.
“Anything for notoriety these days… Throw in a tide pod with a pinch of cinnamon with that piss,” one person wrote.
“At least throw a couple of ice cubes in there,” another wrote.
“Ah yessssss … I’ll take a Plastic Glass with some pee pee Neat – Followed by a Pint Of Guinness … Life is Good!” someone said.
Drinking human or dog urine is known as urine therapy, practiced in ancient China, Rome, Greece and Egypt. But today, experts warn about the impact it can have due to toxins and acids that can be found in the urine.
One holistic nutritionist warned against the unhealthy materials that could be found in dog urine.
“Urine is mostly made up of water, lots of urea, creatinine, various electrolytes, uric acid, trace proteins, and low levels of antibodies and enzymes,” Joy McCarthy, a certified holistic nutritionist, told Allure. “Herbicides have been detected in dog’s urine, likely from herbicide-treated lawns, antibiotics, and hormones, so I really don’t know that it’s the safest choice.”
A common misconception, as popularized by Bear Grylls on Into The Wild in recent years, is that drinking one’s own urine could help in a survival situation when you’re nearing dehydration. But the US Army Field Manual warns against doing so because urine may contain “harmful body waste.”
Lew’s claim that urine has been proven to cure cancer is not confirmed and lacks evidence and research to support the method.
A functional medicine doctor told Mind Body Green that small amounts of urine could be beneficial, but that she would not prescribe it as a cure for disease.
“While most of urine is water, waste, and urea, I still cannot recommend this as a viable alternative to the many diseases it is touted to cure,” Dr. Amy Shah said. “We have more waste in our systems today than we did thousands of years ago.”
