IIT Research-Cow Urine has anti-infective properties
Indian Institute of Technology-Madras Director V. Kamakoti on Monday said five scientific papers published in peer-reviewed journals validated the anti-infective properties of cow urine.
On January 15, at a goshala in West Mambalam, he had said cow urine had anti-fungal, anti-bacterial, and anti-inflammatory properties. He said researchers had conducted experiments and published scientific papers on the subject. He was invited to the goshala on ‘Mattu Pongal’ Day, dedicated to cattle.
A video clip of his speech went viral on social media, with many ridiculing his claim as unscientific and unbecoming of the head of an institution of eminence. On Monday, he said at a media interaction that five research papers on the properties of cow urine had been published in peer-reviewed journals. One of them, ‘Peptide profiling in cow urine reveals molecular signature of physiology-driven pathways and in-silico predicted bioactive properties’, by Rohit Kumar et al, has been published in Nature. The research was done by ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal, Haryana. It was published in 2021.
The other articles are Review on Gomutra (Cow Urine), published in Asian Journal of Pharmaceutical Research, April-June 2020; Benefits of cow urine–a review, published in the International Journal of Recent Advances in Multidisciplinary Research in 2017; Miraculous Benefits of Cow Urine: A Review, published in the Journal of Drug Delivery and Therapeutics in 2020; and Chemotherapeutic potential of cow urine: A review, published in the Journal of Intercultural Ethnopharmacology in April-June 2015.
He also disclosed the details of a patent from the United States given to Khanuja et al on the use of bioactive fraction from cow urine distillate, issued on May 24, 2005. The patent has been filed by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. “The researchers have experimented and presented their findings. Nature is one of the top journals in the United States. The output in the research papers is the evidence,” he said.
Asked what was the topic of his speech, he said, “They asked me to speak on science and cow and I spoke on five topics, including about natural farming and gobar gas. They asked if there was scientific evidence that cow urine had medicinal properties.”
When it was pointed out that research papers on the harmful effects of cow urine had been shared on social media, he said: “I have not seen them. There may be other researchers.”
Mr. Kamakoti said one paper had studied the indigenous breeds of cows. He suggested that since there was much interest now, researchers in the Indian systems of medicine could conduct research.
Dairy News7x7 Jan 22nd 2025 The Hindu