3 MILLION CHINESE DRINK URINE TO KEEP FIT

SHENYANG, June 1, 2001 (Xinhua via COMTEX) - More than three million
Chinese are drinking their own urine for medical purposes, according
to a just-closed national seminar on the therapy with human urine.

Xhu Jinfu, a senior engineer from Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu
Province, said, at the seminar, that many of his forefathers had
enjoyed longevity thanks to this therapy.

The engineer began drinking his own urine when he was 13 and has been
healthy for the past 58 years.

Yang Liansheng, a professor from the Liaoning Institute of Chinese
Medicine, said that urine is turned into something like blood serum
after it is filtered by the kidney. Therefore urine contains no
bacteria and is more sanitary than blood.

Urine contains many kinds of active materials and helps the human
body resist invaders from the outside, and thus improves immunity,
according to the professor.

Almost 80 academic papers were handed over to the seminar, which was
convened on May 26-28 and was attended by over 300 participants.