Might Taurine supplementaion increase healthspan and/or lifespan?

[Saul]

Taurine slows aging in mice. Will it ever work for people?

There is no evidence yet that taking more of the molecule can help humans

The amino acid taurine, made in the body and available in certain foods like energy drinks, is being studied as a way to boost health and extend lifespan.

Jack Taylor/Getty Images

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By Laura Sanders

13 seconds ago

An ingredient common in energy drinks and baby formula makes mice healthier and extends their lifespans. It also appears to make worms live longer and improves the health of middle-aged monkeys, a large international group of scientists reports in the June 9 Science.

The ingredient, an amino acid called taurine, is made by our bodies, and we eat it in meats (SN: 7/21/22). It’s not known whether extra taurine slows aging in people or if it is even good for us, though the new study turned up an association between lower levels of the amino acid and conditions such as diabetes and obesity.

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Aging “is one of the great biological unknowns,” says biologist and cardiologist Toren Finkel of the University of Pittsburgh, who was not involved in the study. “So any way you can chip away at that edifice is great. And this is a new set of findings that deserves to be followed up.”

The results, 11 years in the making, center on taurine in part because scientists found its levels fall with age in the blood of mice, monkeys and humans. As far as amino acids go, taurine is an oddball: Unlike other more familiar amino acids, it doesn’t get incorporated into proteins. Nevertheless, it has a range of suspected jobs in the body, from helping the developing brain to eye health to digestion.

Molecular physiologist Vijay Yadav of Columbia University Irving Medical Center and colleagues found that extra taurine extended mice’s median lifespans by 10 to 12 percent. For example, the median lifespan for female mice that didn’t get extra taurine was around 29 months. With taurine, that increased to nearly 33 months. Taurine led to a similar lifespan boost for shorter-lived worms; C. elegans went from a median of almost 20 days to about 23 days on the highest doses tested.

Taurine was also linked with health in mice and female monkeys. Extra taurine led to improvements in aspects of bone strength, muscle coordination and memory in experiments with groups of five to 10 mice. Six middle-aged rhesus macaques fed extra taurine for six months seemed healthier, weighed less, had denser bones and showed signs of better metabolic health compared with five monkeys that didn’t get extra.

The mice experiments used taurine levels that would be equivalent to about 3 or 6 grams per day for an adult human, Yadav says. A typical energy drink contains 1 gram. There aren’t obvious, known risks of taurine, but thorough long-term studies at these high doses for people have not been done.

Yadav and his colleagues did look at data of nearly 12,000 people and found that individuals with obesity or diabetes had less taurine in their blood than people without the condition. Those links are correlations; it’s not known whether low taurine had a part in causing those conditions. In a separate experiment, an intense bout of exercise led to more taurine in people’s blood. As to whether taurine supplements improve people’s health, “we need to wait for a clinical trial,” Yadav says.

For now, taurine “is promising as a lifespan and health-span intervention,” says John Tower, a molecular biologist and geneticist who studies aging at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles who wasn’t involved in the study. But lots of questions remain, he says, including what taurine actually does in the body and whether it works similarly in different animals, including people. “We’ve got a long way to go.”

Finkel is circumspect, too. Because aging is so complex, a singular fountain of youth probably doesn’t exist. “I think there are going to be many tributaries of youth,” he says. “And so maybe this is a tributary, not a fountain.”

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Citations

P. Singh et al. Taurine deficiency as a driver of aging. Science. Vol. 380. June 9, 2023, p. 1028. doi: 10.1126/science.abn9257.

[Ron Put]

I take a minute amount daily, because of research I had seen before and because I had not seen anything scary at lower doses. I bought a large bag, so it should last for years.

I combine it with L-citrulline, NAC, glycine, lutein, B-12, hyaluronic acid and magnesium gluconate.

Edited to add all supplements I take, including my recent NAC addition.

Edited June 12 by Ron Put

[IgorF]

I remember taurine was recommended somewhere here in the forums and also I saw a two volume set Springer's publication from the conference dedicated to taurine 10-15 years ago or something alike, so I think it deserves further dig but I was not able to get into it for the last years.

I am taking 1/4-1/6th of teaspoon of it, started a bit bigger but after 3 tests for serum aminoacids I found it too high and I think my body has no use for it in such a dosage, going upper for a probably other way to utilize it requires to read a lot first, thus I tuned down to lesser dose and the topic is waiting for me to get back to it .

My data is:

8 <12 mg/l

30 <12 mg/l

21 <12 mg/l

184 <96 umol/l

The first two values on CR and mild protein undertaking, the first one w/o taurine supplement, the last two almost without CR, with supplement.

(perhaps some urine metabolites could be more useful but I have no availability for them to be done)

I think unless one looks for a kind of "therapeutic" effect it should be supplemented with smaller dosing than I do. But I don't feel even basically confident on this now.

Br,

Igor

 

 

[tanuki]

Unfortunately in study they didn't observe increase in maximal lifespan only median so might not be so useful for people having healthy lifestyle and low risk of diabetes, low inflammation etc.
Might be useful biomarker to keep track on as one ages and supplement when needed.
 

[Saul]

1 hour ago, tanuki said:

Unfortunately in study they didn't observe increase in maximal lifespan only median so might not be so useful for people having healthy lifestyle and low risk of diabetes, low inflammation etc.

Hi Tanuki!

Most (I think all) of the animal data collected was on caged animals.  Whether they like it or not, caged animals are on a healthy lifestyle.

(Concerning maximal lifespan:  each study was probably too small for maximal lifespan to be very meaningful.)

I agree with Finkel:

'Finkel is circumspect, too. Because aging is so complex, a singular fountain of youth probably doesn’t exist. “I think there are going to be many tributaries of youth,” he says. “And so maybe this is a tributary, not a fountain.” '

  --  Saul

 

 

[Ron Put]

A good analysis of the Taurine Deficiency as a Driver of Aging study.

I take about 500mg per day, which I feel is likely safe based on what I have read.

But for me, some questions remain:
- The longest living human populations generally consume less taurine in their diet.
- There are some potentially significant red flags (too) briefly mentioned in relation to the graph at 59:25, showing how taurine supplementation correlates with lipids going the wrong way.

Edited July 13 by Ron Put

[InquilineKea]

Quote

- The longest living human populations generally consume less taurine in their diet.

That's because there are SO many benefits of vegetarianism that more than make up for this deficiency, but it still doens't prevent them from living longer IF they addressed this one deficiency. Wikipedia says taurine in vegans is 74% of that of non-vegans (tho I'm sure there's lots of variation)