Drinking urine is not recommended: it can make you sick, worsen dehydration, and put extra stress on your kidneys.

Quick Scoop: What Happens If You Drink Pee?

What pee actually is

Urine is mostly water, but it also contains:

  • Waste products your body wanted to get rid of (urea, creatinine, metabolic “toxins”).
  • Salts and other electrolytes in fairly high concentration.
  • Bacteria (it is not truly sterile, especially once it leaves the body).

Your kidneys work hard to push this stuff out ; drinking it just sends it back in again.

Short‑term effects if you drink it

For a one‑time “experiment” with a small amount:

  • You might feel nauseous or actually vomit.
  • You could get diarrhea or stomach upset, because you’re swallowing concentrated waste and bacteria.
  • If you’re already low on fluids (like in a survival situation), the salt in urine can actually make you more dehydrated, not less.

Most healthy people will probably not drop dead from one small sip, but it’s still unhygienic and offers zero real health benefit.

Risks if you keep doing it

Repeated or heavy urine drinking can cause more serious problems:

  • Extra kidney stress : your kidneys have to filter the same waste over and over, which can contribute to kidney damage over time.
  • Higher risk of infections from bacteria or viruses present in urine (especially if it’s someone else’s or if they have an infection).
  • Electrolyte imbalances (too much or too little sodium, potassium, etc.), which can mess with your heart, muscles, and nervous system.

There’s no good evidence of real medical benefits from drinking urine, despite “urotherapy” claims online.

Survival myth vs reality (the Bear Grylls question)

People often ask if it’s better than nothing in a survival scenario. The modern survival and medical view:

  • Urine is not a safe or effective hydration source; it tends to make dehydration worse because of its salt and waste load.
  • Documented survivors who drank urine usually lived in spite of it, not because of it ; other factors (shelter, rescue timing, some water) matter more.

If you ever are truly stuck, the guidance is to find or collect cleaner water (rain, condensation, filtered/purified sources) rather than drinking pee.

What forums and jokes say

Online threads often joke that “you just turn it into more pee” or “you’ll just vomit,” and some people play it for shock value.

Underneath the humor, even commenters usually add a version of “don’t do this, it’s gross and pointless,” which lines up with medical advice.

Is it ever “safe”?

  • Tiny accidental exposures (like a splash to the mouth) in a healthy person are unlikely to cause major harm, but you should rinse, spit, and not make it a habit.
  • Deliberately drinking urine as a “health hack” or “natural medicine” is not supported by science and can delay proper treatment for real conditions.

If someone has swallowed a noticeable amount of urine and then feels very unwell (vomiting that won’t stop, fever, pain, confusion, or signs of severe dehydration), they should seek medical help or contact poison control right away.

Bottom note: Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.