[paul.fr]

Not too sure where to put this?

Following on from Neils topics about hand washing:

if urine is sterile, is there any need to wash your hands after visiting the little boys room?

[neilep]

I don't...I never wash my hands...in fact i don't wash at all !...

It takes some persuading for me to have my annual bath !


Good question Paul. Is Urine sterile ?......because is it not an indicator of disease also ?...now I realise that does not mean that in itself it is diseased but.......oh..I dunno !...lets hope a passing Urologist calls in and takes the piss !! []

[Bored chemist]

Q
"is there any need to wash your hands after visiting the little boys room?"
A
Only if you pee on your hands.

However, while that argument is totally logical, it doesn't convince many people.

[Karen W.]

What about the spread of hepatitis? Just because something is sterile does that necessarily make it impossible to still react in a way with our saliva and be reintroduced into our body obviously unsterile at this point! Is it just feces that cause trouble with hep or is it both?  Once Urine leaves the confines of the body it is no longer sterile I would think! Like when they need a clean sweep urine analysis They do not want the urine to pass across the outer skin of your body thus for women making it rather awkward to produce a clean sweep without difficulty, cleaning thoroughly before and getting a mid stream catch!

[elegantlywasted]

Urine itself is sterile, its just after it leaves the bladder it can pick up bacteria from the urethra, and anything else may cross on its path.

Ps. Morning urine is supposed to be the best thing to wash your face with... i think i may have read that here.

[Karen W.]

Yuck! Sorry..BUT YUCK! LOL Kinda on the same mode as the astonauts recycling theirs for drinking water!

[neilep]

Yuck! Sorry..BUT YUCK! LOL Kinda on the same mode as the astonauts recycling theirs for drinking water!

It is mostly water..it's must marinated in Urine Luff.

Like Meg says above I too have heard that it's supposed to be good to wash your face with in the morning....it's also usually the first morning pee that doctors want you to bring too for testing !! (I secretly think they like washing their faces with it too and this way they get a regular supply)

[Karen W.]

 That sounds so nasty! YUCK!! I is too squimish for that!

[paul.fr]

That sounds so nasty! YUCK!! I is too squimish for that!

me too, plus i tend to wash with my mouth slightly open and blow the water out as i wash.....yukkkk

[Karen W.]

Especially if it's soapy.. Nothing like a mouth full of soapy nastiness.

[neilep]

SOAP !!!.....................aaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhhhh !!!!

[Karen W.]

SOAP !!!.....................aaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhhhh !!!!

LOL..LOL..

[JimBob]

So-called "primitive" people in their medicine urge everyone to drink their first morning urine. Scientist have found that this is the time most un-used vitamins are excreted, making it a sound practice in areas where there is little nutritional variation or a yearly change in foods. Native Americans have used this and so have many Asian cultures, including those of India.

[lightarrow]

Sorry, but who says urine is sterile? Not at all! Urine do contains microorganisms (bacteria ecc.) even in health people (not to talk about peple with specific illnesses).

Of course, if you drink 3 litres of water in half an hour, your next urine will be almost pure water, but for common urine, it's not so.

About washing hands, I hope you wash them after leaving the little boy's room AND before entering it! []

[Bored chemist]

"Sorry, but who says urine is sterile?"
Nearly 23000 hits on Google. Also, urine samples if properly taken, can be posted to labs for analysis without refrigeration. You couldn't do that if they weren't pretty near free of bugs.

I don't really see what diluting it with water has to do with whether or not there are bacteria present.
BTW, one definition of a chemist is someone who washes their hands before taking a leak. I have heard this also applies to chefs in Mexican restaurants.

[lightarrow]

"Sorry, but who says urine is sterile?"
Nearly 23000 hits on Google. Also, urine samples if properly taken, can be posted to labs for analysis without refrigeration. You couldn't do that if they weren't pretty near free of bugs.

You call "urine" the fluid coming out of kidneys? So I have misunderstood the english term. I thought it was the fluid coming out of the body, the one that is analyzed.

I don't really see what diluting it with water has to do with whether or not there are bacteria present.

Of course, but having 1 bacterial cell in 1ml is not the same to have 1 cell in 1 litre. How do you establish the presence of bacteria? You analyze the fluid. When you take a sample for analysis, you could find no cells, in the latter case.

[Bored chemist]

Mid stream urine samples are pretty near sterile; exactly how much urine it takes to rinse the bugs that are in the urinary tract out is not an experiment I want to take part in. The stuff in the bladder is near sterile but it may pick up some bacteria on the way out.

[lightarrow]

Mid stream urine samples are pretty near sterile; exactly how much urine it takes to rinse the bugs that are in the urinary tract out is not an experiment I want to take part in. The stuff in the bladder is near sterile but it may pick up some bacteria on the way out.

Ok, let's put it in this way: a man working in a restaurant's kitchen is found by you not washing his hands after having gone to the little boy's room, and going back to the kitchen to prepare food. Would you eat food in that reasaurant? If I am a Sanity Inspector, would you expect me to say: "no problem" or would you expect me to make some more restrictive actions against him and the restaurant?
Or I should let him go if he told me: "but it was only mid stream urine"?
Do you know that I could be persecuted if I don't do anything to him and to the restaurant?
Please, let's not say urine is sterile, we can't joke with these things.

[chris]

Bored chemist is right. In females urine (especially initially voided urine) is rarely sterile because it picks up local flora from around the urethral opening as it exits. In the same way, urine from an uncircumcised male is usually contaminated by bacteria which flourish under the foreskin and therefore accumulate around the meatus.

In contrast, urine from a circumcised male is usually pretty much sterile.

[Bored chemist]

You sack the kitchen worker because he isn't following the rules he signed up to when he started his job.
Do you imagine that most food is sterile? It almost certainly isn't when it's raw.
The potential added bacterial count from urinary tract bacteria is trivial; those from the bowels are a rather different matter.
If the man rubs his hand across his face do you sack him for that? It is likely to add a lot more bugs to your meal.
God help him if, while tasting the food, he contaminates it with the huge range of bugs that grow in his mouth. Trust me, if he had anything like that number of bugs in his urine, he wouldn't be at work in a kitchen; he'd be in the emergency room of the local hospital
Hang on, how shocking would it be if I said that my wife cooks my food and afterwards I kiss her?
(OK, technically I'm lying there because I'm not married, but the point stands)

The problem here is not a serious problem with bacteria from healthy people. It's a combination of the risk from those tiny minority who are carriers of diseases and the "Ugh! factor".

BTW, sorry, but the phrase "If I am a Sanity Inspector" seems to have lost something in translation.