Hopefully this never happens to you,
but, let's say you found yourself
in an extreme situation.
You're out of food and water,
and the only liquid nearby is, well
(zipper zips)
your own.
(liquid splashing)
You've heard of astronauts drinking urine in space,
but they have high tech filtration systems,
and you don't.
Your best option is to drink it straight
like Aron Ralston did when he was trapped
in a canyon for 127 hours before escape and rescue.
If Ralston did it and survived, so should you, right?
Depending on the environment,
an adult can survive up to one week without water,
and three weeks without food.
But that window quickly narrows
when you're dehydrated, sick, or both.
For that reason, the Army has a field manual
which has a do not drink list for such an occasion.
The list includes, fish juices,
blood, alcohol, sea water, and, yes, urine.
In fact, when you break it down,
urine isn't that much different from sea water.
It's usually around 95% water with a mix
of byproducts including sodium, chloride, and urea.
Sea water by comparison is 96.5% water,
and 3.5% sodium and chloride.
So drinking urine is basically like drinking sea water.
It's going to dehydrate you,
which is the opposite of what you want.
To make matters worse,
if you keep drinking it, the severe dehydration
can trigger abnormally low blood pressure.
Low blood pressure means less blood flow to vital organs
like your heart, lungs, and kidneys,
which can be damaged or fail as a result.
Not good.
Adding to your trouble is that urea.
In a word, urea is waste.
It's not supposed to be in your body.
That's why your kidneys filter it
out of your blood and into your urine,
which ordinarily then leaves your system.
But if you drink the urine instead,
your kidneys have to work harder
to filter out that extra urea,
which could lead to kidney failure.
Again, not good.
Suffice it to say, drinking urine
may be your kidneys' worst nightmare.
And to top it off, there's the bacteria.
Contrary to popular belief, urine is not sterile.
According to one study,
it contains at least 85 different bacterial species.
Some of the most common are ones like staphylococcus,
which is known to cause food poisoning,
and actinomyces which is commonly found in gum infections.
So unless you want sore gums, nausea,
and failing organs while you search for rescue,
best avoid that urine cocktail all together.
What's the weirdest survival tip that you know?
Let us know in the comments, and thanks for watching.