Golden Elixirs?

One assumes that the cures for the afflictions of our times—cancer, AIDS, depression—will be concocted in a pharmaceutical laboratory somewhere in Switzerland, or perhaps New Jersey, by a process that will soon involve genetic manipulation. Pharmacogenetics is quite simply the future of medicine. Not only will drugs one day be individually tailored to a patient's precise genetic make-up, but they will effectively target an individual's pathogens, while minimizing the toxic side effects of today's more powerful remedies, which can affect different people in widely various ways.

The BBC reports however that personalised medicines have been "over-hyped (sic)" and are still many years, perhaps decades, away. It was assumed that with the sequencing of the human genome, the production of bespoke drugs would soon develop, but that assessment appears now grossly overestimated.

What the report fails to mention, however, is that there may already exist a perfectly individualised remedy, one that has existed in fact since the birth of humankind, costs nothing to produce, and is immediately available to even the most wretched soul in this world. Imagine a magical potion containing the very antibodies, hormones, enzymes, and nutrients that your own body produces in its own defence and for its self-preservation. What is this magical, priceless, natural potion? It's your own pee.

Auto-urotherapy, or Amaroli in ancient Ayurvedic practice, consists of nothing more than drinking your own urine (preferably in its richest commixture first thing in the morning), and it is being re-examined in many quarters today. At least one study by an ostensible MD advocates oral auto-urotherapy as a treatment for cancer patients. Since the antibodies contained in urine are produced by one's own immune system in reaction to present antigens, a more perfect remedy, in theory, could not by man be made. Go ahead, get a taste of your own medicine. Or not.

Which brings us to this. According to this BBC report, scientists have been suggesting that lemon juice not only could act as a cheap and effective means of birth control but more importantly could help prevent the spread of AIDS in developing countries. Laboratory tests have shown that lemon juice, because of its high acidity, is very effective in immobilising human sperm as well as killing the AIDS virus and could thus be an alternative to costly HIV-drugs in developing countries where even a condom can be prohibitively expensive. The practice of using lemon juice as a douche-style contraceptive is widely known in Southeast Asia and was even employed in medieval Europe. Casanova, for example, was said to have used lemon halves as a cervical cap and natural spermicide, although one wonders how he might have gone about introducing such a thing.

Another report suggests that use of this cheap and natural solution is being opposed by pharmaceutical concerns that have poured millions into the research of high-tech vaginal HIV blockers. Lemon juice is not only dirt cheap, after all, it cannot be patented.

So two magically natural, virtually free yellow potions that may turn out to be the most effective remedies against the scourges of our time. Or not.