Doctors Continue to Back Up George Costanza’s Bathroom Theories

Last month we discussed how medical experts (somewhat inadvertently) weighed in on a 30-year-old Seinfeld debate concerning bodily fluids. In the Season Five episode “The Wife,” George Costanza is caught peeing in a communal shower, and ends up being ridiculed by his friends and nearly thrown out of his health club as a result. 

But CNN reported that several urologists went on record as saying that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with taking a whizz in the shower, in fact it’s “actually healthy.” This report seemingly validated George’s position on the matter, effectively dismantling Elaine and Jerry’s argument about public hygiene protocols and plumbing. 

Well, it turns out that the medical community isn’t quite done retroactively validating George’s bathroom-based theories. CNN, which is really on top of the pee-pee etiquette beat this year, recently published an article noting that holding your pee in, while sometimes harmless, “can pose threats to your health.”

If you recall, upon hearing that George relieved himself in the shower, as opposed to putting on a robe and finding a toilet, Elaine responds, “Did you ever hear of holding it in?” To which George replies, “Oh no, no that’s very bad for the kidneys,” citing medical journals as his source of information. 

Elaine and Jerry condescendingly dismiss George’s opinion, but he was totally right: holding pee in can be bad for your kidneys. For one thing, it can increase the risk of getting a urinary tract infection, and that UTI could potentially “ascend into the kidneys and result in the kidney infection pyelonephritis.” And if this infection is untreated, it could lead to “bloodstream infection or urosepsis,” which is “sepsis from a urinary source.”

But in “more extreme cases,” holding it all in can cause “urine to back up into the kidneys,” which could then lead to “infections, kidney damage or hydronephrosis,” a “condition in which the kidneys swell and stretch from the buildup.” 

Not to mention that leaving your bladder full to the brim can cause “abdominal pain, cramping or bladder stones.” And as Cosmo Kramer will tell you, passing any sort of stone is no fun at all. 

While it’s funny to talk about all of this in the context of Seinfeld, we should say that it’s a major health hazard for a significant number of people. As the article points out, this has been an issue for nurses and teachers who “don’t go to the bathroom at all throughout the day when they’re on shift or in the classroom.” And Amazon fulfillment center workers have revealed that their bathroom breaks are limited and even “timed,” while the company’s delivery drivers have famously had to urinate in plastic water bottles as the result of allegedly being forced to work through breaks. 

Still, this does mean that Costanza was 100 percent correct in his urinary defense. Incidentally, the scientific community also has his back on the issue of shrinkage — although they seem to think that it’s caused by pollution.