Comparative Antimicrobial Potential of Commercial and In-house Urine and Urine Products of Different Origins

The Indian cow urine has been revered as Amrit (nectar) by the present-day majority society of India.This study was done for the evaluation of the antimicrobial activity of cow urine and its products, and also attempted to compare with similar preparations from the urine of dogs, buffaloes and humans.Besides, this study also evaluated the microbial safety of the urine and urine preparations using standard protocols.The study done on cow urines, cow urine distillates, human urine, human urine distillate, buffalo urine and buffalo urine distillate and dog urine indicated that none of the urine preparations were free of microbial contamination and a battery of bacteria may be present in whole urine either collected a fresh or available in market for human consumption.As far as the antimicrobial potential of different urine preparations determined on 912 microbial strains belonging to 149 species and subspecies of 49 genera from clinical cases (369), environmental sources (496) and reference strains (47) revealed that buffalo urine inhibited 64.50% of the microbes followed by different brands of cow urines (18.5% to 33.06%), human urine (4.41%) and dog urine (0.00%).However the most potent antimicrobial activity was detected in urine distillates of Sahiwal heifers (79.28%),Tharparkar heifers (74.56%), buffalo heifers (57.29%), and other distillates inhibited <50% of the strains.The reconstituted urine from Gir cow urine powder had no detectable antimicrobial activity against test strains.The two undiluted surface disinfectants made from cow urine, Gaunyle and Pari-D100, could inhibit about 5% of the microbial strains and none of the two inhibited microbes after ≥1:2 dilutions.Of the 905 bacterial strains in the study, 118 (13.04%) produced extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL), 67 (7.40%) were resistant to ciprofloxacin, and 19 (2.10%) were resistant to imipenem.On 48 h of incubation there was an insignificant difference in proportionate susceptibility of imipenem-resistant/ imipenem-susceptible, ESBL non-producers/ ESBL producers and ciprofloxacin-resistant/ ciprofloxacin-susceptible bacterial strains for UDs of cows and buffaloes indicating no preferential utility of cow urine preparations against drug-resistant strains.The study indicated that in the absence of microbial food-safety of urine preparations in the market, and their limited antimicrobial activity, urine or its preparations are of little value in therapeutics.