3rdChannel's video: Chinese Urine Therapy Man Drinks His Own Wee Everyday Claiming It Cures Tumours Broken Bones Even

It's mid-morning in the Kangyuyuan residential area in the city of Wuhan, China. Bao Yafu and Yi Dongshan are about to enjoy their first cups of urine of the day. Having returned from the bathroom of the cluttered China Urine Therapy Association office, they head to the roof terrace clasping newly-filled cups of dark yellow waste liquid, each with a little head of foam on top. 'Delicious! I want more!' says Mr Yi, 61, after enthusiastically taking a sip of his own effluent. 'Mine tastes like light tea,' says Mr Bao, 80, after drinking his. The pair polish off the rest of the contents of their cups. Mr Yi, who is sporting a fetching pair of knock-off Playboy shoes, splashes a bit around his face with his hands and dribbles some down his stripy shirt. Since 2010, Mr Bao has been the head of the Wuhan branch of the China Urine Therapy Association, an organisation comprised of people who drink their own urine every day. The association, which is not recognised by China's Ministry of Health, was set up in Hong Kong in 2008, with the Wuhan office opening in 2008. Membership has grown from an early count of around 400 to today's total of roughly 1,000. Ignoring medical consensus – and anyone who believes that drinking urine is just plain disgusting – members believe that drinking it prolongs life, improves health and can even cure diseases such as cancer. MailOnline was invited to the office for a closer look at the bizarre practice. The poky apartment certainly gives an indication of how fervently Mr Bao believes in his endeavor. Urine therapy newsletters are stacked high on a bench and bottles of cloudy yellow liquid are lined up on a coffee table. Our host explains that he has been drinking urine daily since 1972. He was introduced to the practice by a family in Hong Kong, where the main office of the association is based. The family claimed that drinking it restored the ailing father of their clan to health. Mr Bao says that after being convinced to give it a whirl, daily urine doses led to him being cured of constipation and canker sores. Then, he claims, after six months his previously-bald head started sprouting hair again. While today he happily sips his own urine without gagging or retching, he admits that when he first tried it he was concerned about how it would taste. 'I held the cup for a while then plucked up the courage to drink about 100ml whilst holding my nose,' he says. 'I found that it didn't taste of much, and in fact tasted better than some traditional Chinese medicines. I made it a habit to drink 100ml a day from then, and now I'm on 300ml a day.' Last year, speaking to the South China Morning Post, nephrology doctor Chen Wenli explained why drinking urine is not beneficial. 'Five per cent of urine is nitrogenous waste, which is mainly urea, while the other 95 per cent is all water,' he said. He added: 'If the person is ill, there will also be sugar, protein, red and white blood cells and ketone bodies in the urine. Because the toxin dispelled by the body may end up in metabolite products like urine, there is no good in drinking it.' In 2013 GP Dr Rob Hicks told MailOnline: 'Over the years many people have claimed health benefits from drinking their own urine, but as far as I'm aware there is no scientific evidence to back-up these claims. 'The kidneys are an efficient filtering system getting rid of what the body doesn't need, so to put this back into the body seems counter-productive.' But the China Urine Therapy Association's line is that the liquid garners nutrients from blood, so is beneficial. Its official literature reads: 'Urine comes from blood. Its chemical components come from blood and equal those of blood. The urine from a healthy person is sterile.' In line with this stance, Mr Bao won't entertain any experts' dismissals of his habit. Sitting in the main office room next to the association's wall-mounted official green flag, he waves around a printout of a 2013 Canadian scientific study of the complexity of urine named The Human Urine Metabolome.