Taurine – DietNet

Taurine is a free-form amino acid that participates in a variety of metabolic processes. Its also a neurotransmitter, a neuromodulator and is involved in glucose uptake.It’s a component of bile acids, which are used to help absorb fats and fat-soluble vitamins.

Taurine also helps regulate the heart beat, maintain cell membrane stability, and reduce brain cell over-activity.

It is mainly found free in most tissues, especially throughout the nervous system.

It functions in tissues by stabilizing cell membranes, aiding the transport of potassium, sodium, calcium and magnesium in and out of cells.

Taurine helps to generate and regulate nerve impulses and aids in the maintenance of fluid balance; it is also used by the body in visual pathways, as well as in the brain and nervous system, where it works together with glycine and GABA as a neurotransmitter.

www.naturefoods.co.nz/now-foods-taurine

Now Foods Taurine Powder (227g)

The Multiple Benefits of Taurine

Taurine is an amino acid that was once labelled as non-essential simply because it is manufactured by our bodies, therefore the need for it as a supplement was not necessary. Nothing could be further from the truth and today taurine is considered an essential amino acid that is vital for many of the processes carried out within our bodies.

Amino acids are compounds that are derived from a protein diet such as fish, chicken and meat. The body breaks protein down into numerous amino acids which are then utilised to rebuild our body proteins from hair right down to the feet. But there’s more to amino acids then just rebuilding our structures. They are required for cell function, cell regeneration, for the formation of antibodies and hence for the immune system, for hormone production and for enzyme production. In effect they are equally important as vitamins and minerals are for the optimal function of the whole body.

Taurine’s benefits are very widespread, but before we find out its benefits, it is important to know that a deficiency state of taurine is very likely in vegetarian and vegan diets, as well as in those suffering from cardiovascular concerns and diabetics, as well as poor functioning of the liver and kidneys. Additionally, our ageing bodies simply do not manufacture sufficient taurine making supplementation vital.

The benefits of Taurine

Before I explain the benefits of taurine, I think it important to address the negative publicity associated with energy drinks and taurine. Taurine is included in numerous heavily advertised energy drinks and many people assume that taurine is the causal factor of the side effects, whilst actually nothing could be further from the truth. These energy drinks often contain high amounts of caffeine, in many instances as high as 300mg in a serving, which is equivalent to 4-5 cups of strong coffee. Side effects of such high doses of caffeine include nervousness, jitters, seizures and a racing heart.

Taurine can provide numerous benefits and listed below are some of the protective properties of taurine.

Weight loss and obesity – the consequence of obesity impacts nearly every area of our bodies. Our abdominal fat stores are known to cause inflammation, which can lead to cardiovascular concerns. Taurine has the ability to significantly help lower lipid levels within the bloodstream and improves the body’s ability to cope with excess glucose in the bloodstream. Lipid lowering may help to protect against cardiovascular concerns whilst glucose tolerance is significant because many obese people go on to develop diabetes.

Cardiovascular disease – the heart contains a high concentration of taurine and various studies indicate the benefits of supplementing taurine for a variety of heart concerns. In studies, taurine was found to increase the retention of potassium and magnesium in the heart muscle which are necessary for electrical stability and regular heart muscle contractions. Studies also suggest that patients with high blood pressure have lower than normal levels of taurine in the bloodstream. When taurine levels are lower than normal, a protein called ‘angiotensin’ is released that causes the elevation of blood pressure.

Cholesterol reduction – elevated cholesterol is a common feature of cardiovascular disease. Taurine is required for the production of a compound that causes more cholesterol to be excreted in bile. Taurine has also been shown to improve the ability to reduce low density lipoproteins (LDL) which is often referred to as ‘bad cholesterol’. In this way taurine may protect the body against the hardening of the arteries and cardiovascular disease.

Eye Protection – taurine is the most abundant amino acid in the retina and protects the eye from various toxins. Its levels also decline significantly with age. Age-related vision loss has many different causes, but high on the list of causal factors is oxidative stress on the light sensory cells in the retina. Taurine’s ability to remove damaging molecules in the eye may implicate its ability to protect the retina.

Tinnitus – generally damage to hearing occurs to the nerve cells that convert sound waves into electrical energy, which the brain becomes aware of. Like nearly all nerve cells, the hair cells within the ear depend upon the flow of calcium into and out of them. Taurine helps to control the flow of calcium into and out of the hearing cells in the ear. These properties may help to prevent progressive hearing loss and may also be invaluable in the control of tinnitus.

Liver Protection – the liver is the body’s master organ of detoxification filtering toxins and harmful chemicals from the bloodstream as they pass through. Studies indicate that taurine helps to protect the liver cells against oxidative damage thus ensuring that the liver cells efficiently remove harmful compounds. This is vital in both alcohol and non-alcohol fatty liver diseases both of which can lead to eventual liver failure.

Exercise – taurine helps muscles work harder, longer and safer. Taurine increases muscle contractility both within the heart and joints resulting in more powerful workouts. Taurine also helps to remove lactic acid build-up which means that you can carry on working out for longer than you would otherwise. Finally, taurine’s ability to mop up compounds that cause oxidative stress thus protecting them from damage.

With all these multiple benefits, it is no wonder that taurine is often called the longevity nutrient. The Japanese population has the highest longevity and this is thought to be due to the amount of taurine rich-foods consumed such as meat and especially seafood. Numerous studies indicate that the average omnivorous diet (meat and vegetables) provides approximately 58 mg per day. Studies indicate a daily dose of 1500 mg to 3000 mg per day may offer health benefits that are almost impossible to achieve from diet alone.

As we age all our processes age with us including the manufacture of taurine from cysteine within our bodies. I am not advocating high doses of taurine such as those used in clinical studies, however I do feel that if any of the above concerns are applicable to you then it would be prudent to introduce Taurine by Life Extension into your supplemental regimen even on a one-a-day dosage. Currently, there are no known side effects or drug interactions, however taurine is best avoided by pregnant women and nursing mothers.

This content is not intended to replace conventional medical treatment. Any suggestions made and all herbs listed are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease, condition or symptom. Personal directions and use should be provided by a clinical herbalist or other qualified healthcare practitioner.

by Shabir Daya

https://www.victoriahealth.com/editorial/the-multiple-benefits-of-taurine

The Forgotten Longevity Benefits of Taurine

The Japanese have a life expectancy that is among the highest in the world. In fact, Okinawa, Japan’s famous “Island of Longevity,” likely has the world’s highest percentage of people over 100 years old.

Undoubtedly, there are many factors that play into the life spans of the longest-living populations, but evidence shows that they all have one thing in common: high dietary intake of an amino acid called taurine.

The connection between taurine and a long life is so strong that researchers have dubbed taurine, “The nutritional factor for the longevity of the Japanese.”

Taurine promotes cardiovascular health, insulin sensitivity, electrolyte balance, hearing function, and immune modulation. In animal research, taurine protected against heart failure, reducing mortality by nearly 80%.

Its benefits are so broad and extensive that scientists have described taurine as “a wonder molecule.”

Taurine is found abundantly in healthy bodies. However, certain diets, particularly vegetarian or vegan diets, lack adequate amounts of taurine. Disease states—including liver, kidney, or heart failure, diabetes, and cancer—can all cause a deficiency in taurine. And aging bodies often cannot internally produce an optimal amount of taurine, making supplementation vital.

That’s why those interested in longevity should consider this vital and super low-cost nutrient. In this article, you’ll learn how boosting taurine levels can contribute to better cardiovascular, metabolic, and neurologic health.

Why We Need Supplemental Taurine

In the enthusiasm to investigate new longevity compounds, sometimes the importance of venerable ones that have been around for decades is forgotten. Such is the case of taurine. Foundation members used to get taurine as part of multi-nutrient formula, but this product is not as popular as it once was.

A study released in November 2012 made the bold statement that taurine is one of the most essential substances in the body. The authors wrote: “Considering its broad distribution, its many cytoprotective attributes, and its functional significance in cell development, nutrition, and survival, taurine is undoubtedly one of the most essential substances in the body.”

Although it’s possible for your body to produce taurine on its own, you still need to obtain taurine through diet and supplementation in order to achieve optimal amounts of this essential nutrient.

Because of taurine’s essential role in the body, supplementing with taurine can provide numerous health benefits, including restoring insulin sensitivity, mitigating diabetic complications, reversing cardiovascular disease factors, preventing and treating fatty liver disease, alleviating seizures, reversing tinnitus, and more.

Taurine Prevents Obesity

One of the ways taurine can help improve overall health is by fighting obesity. Obesity impacts every area of the body, especially because of the inflammation-generating abdominal fat stores. Human studies show that 3 grams per day of taurine for 7 weeks reduced body weight significantly in a group of overweight or obese (but not-yet-diabetic) adults. Subjects saw significant declines in their serum triglycerides and “atherogenic index,” a ratio of multiple cholesterol components that predicts atherosclerosis risk.

Various animal studies support the anti-obesity and lipid-lowering capabilities of taurine, both alone and combined with other natural products. These studies highlight taurine’s ability to improve glucose tolerance in obese animals, an important benefit given how many overweight people go on to develop diabetes.

Perhaps most alarming, animal research reveals that obesity itself causes a decline in plasma taurine levels, which, in a vicious cycle, further promotes obesity. The observed decline in taurine levels was seen in mouse models of both genetic obesity and diet-induced obesity. Fortunately, in the same study, taurine supplementation interrupted the cycle, helping to prevent obesity and its consequences.

Taurine Promotes Glucose Control—and Treats Diabetes

It is a known fact that taurine concentrations are lower among diabetics than they are in healthy individuals. Given the above information about low taurine levels promoting obesity, it is clear that the low levels of taurine only serve to promote the interdependence of diabetes and obesity. Fortunately, human studies have shown that supplementing with just 1.5 grams of taurine a day can restore taurine levels to those in healthy control subjects, and additional animal research has shown that taurine supplementation can help prevent the onset of type II diabetes.

Normal taurine concentrations are essential in controlling diabetes and the impact of its consequences. Animal studies have found that having adequate taurine concentrations helps control diabetes by reducing blood glucose and restoring insulin sensitivity. But it doesn’t stop there. Taurine helps prevent—and even reverse—many of the consequences associated with the disease.

For example, in adult diabetics, supplementation with 1.5 grams of taurine daily for just 14 days can reverse diabetes-induced abnormalities in arterial stiffness and in the ability of the vasculature to respond to changes in blood flow or pressure. This can be critical to the longevity of diabetics, since these types of abnormalities are to blame for diabetics’ increased risk of dying from cardiovascular disease. In addition, studies in diabetic rats show that taurine helps protect heart function and helps prevent heart muscle damage, due in part to the ability of taurine to increase glucose transport from blood into energy-hungry heart muscle cells. In the process of increasing glucose transport into energy producing cells, blood glucose levels are lowered.

Additional animal and cell culture studies have revealed that taurine supplementation is effective against diabetic complications as well. Taurine supports nerve fiber integrity, potentially slowing or reversing painful diabetic neuropathy. And in the retina, another target of destructive elevated blood glucose, taurine fights glucose-induced oxidant stress and preserves the health of light-sensing cells in diabetic retinopathy. Kidney damage, another consequence of diabetes, can be minimized with taurine supplementation in diabetic animals.

What You Need to Know

Taurine: Bountiful Benefits

Taurine is the most abundant amino acid you’ve never heard of; it is found throughout the body, but especially in tissues containing excitable cells, like nerves and heart muscle.
Strong epidemiological evidence suggests that certain groups with the longest life spans consume higher amounts of taurine than those of us in the rest of the world.
Taurine supplementation can prevent diabetes and obesity in animal models, and can mitigate the effects of both conditions in humans.
Taurine supplementation strengthens heart muscle cells, extends their life spans, and protects them from damage, while reducing many of the factors that produce atherosclerosis and its deadly consequences.
Taurine protects retinal and inner ear cells from damage, normalizing the flow of calcium ions they require for proper function.
Evidence is growing for taurine’s role in preventing epileptic seizures and liver disease, two conditions that can be attributed to toxic effects on delicate tissue.
If you are interested in a longer, healthier, and more active life, consider supplementing with taurine.

Taurine Reverses Cardiovascular Disease Factors

Taurine has powerful effects on the heart and blood vessels. People with higher levels of taurine have significantly lower rates of dying from coronary heart disease. Additionally, they have lower body mass index, lower blood pressure, and lower levels of dangerous lipids. Many different mechanisms account for these powerful effects on the heart and blood vessels.

In animal models of hypertension, taurine supplementation lowers blood pressure by reducing the resistance to blood flow in the blood vessel walls and by minimizing nerve impulses in the brain that drive blood pressure up. Oral taurine supplementation has been found to reduce the arterial thickening and stiffness characteristic of atherosclerosis, to restore arteries’ responses to beneficial endothelial nitric oxide, and to reduce inflammation (a direct contributor to cardiovascular disease).

A study of patients needing coronary bypass surgery showed that consuming a liquid drink containing 3 grams of taurine, combined with 3 grams carnitine, 150 mg CoQ10, and basic multivitamin nutrients, reduced left-sided ventricular volume during the heart’s resting phase (diastole). This is important since an increased left-ventricular diastolic volume is the single greatest predictor of death in patients requiring bypass or stent placements. This makes taurine a vital component of such patients’ diets.

Enhance Your Exercise Performance

Want a better workout? Try taking taurine supplements! Trained athletes who supplement with taurine experience better exercise performance, and cyclists ride longer distances with less fatigue.

There’s good reason for these positive effects: Taurine helps muscles work harder, longer, and safer.

Harder. Taurine increases muscle contractility (the force with which muscle cells pull together) in both skeletal and cardiac muscle. That means more powerful workouts as muscle works harder.

Longer. Taurine helps exercising muscle rid itself of lactic acid. Lactic acid is what causes the feelings of pain and soreness and is what limits how much a muscle can continue to work. By cleaning up lactic acid, taurine helps muscles work longer.

Safer. Working muscles generate oxidant stress and damage DNA, leading to the potential for muscle damage and poorer performance. Taurine protects muscles from such damage, so muscle works more safely.

Taurine Provides Potent Retina Protection

Taurine is especially vital when it comes to eye health. Adequate levels can help prevent age-related vision loss; conversely, a deficiency can lead to troubling vision problems. Age-related vision loss has many different causes, but near the top is the impact of oxidative stress on light-sensing cells in the retina. Such damage leads to age-related macular degeneration and other forms of retinal disease.

While taurine is found in very high concentrations in the retina, it declines significantly with age. Additionally, the taurine found in the retina fights oxidative stress, especially in diabetes, and helps restore deficient levels of nerve growth factor, required for maintaining retinal health.

When taurine levels are deficient, a variety of vision problems can occur including retinal ganglion cell degeneration, and in children, retinal dysfunction; taurine supplementation has been shown to ameliorate diabetic retinopathy. Evidence is strong that taurine is vital in maintaining optimal retinal function.

Certain drugs deplete the body of taurine, which can induce retinal damage. These include frequently used chemotherapy drugs such as cyclophosphamide (Cytoxan®) and busultan (Bulsufex®) as well as the anti-epileptic drug vigabatrin (Sabril®). Radiation therapy has also been shown to deplete the body of taurine. Fortunately, supplementation can restore taurine levels to normal and protect the retina in such cases.

Taurine Helps Reverse Tinnitus

Taurine plays a vital role in hearing. In fact, studies have found that in some cases, taurine can reverse the biochemical processes behind hearing loss. Other studies have demonstrated that taurine can almost completely eliminate the ringing in the ears associated with tinnitus.

Much of the damage to hearing occurs not in the mechanical parts of the ear, but rather in the nerve cells that convert sound waves into the electrical energy that is perceived in our brains. Like other nerve cells, these so-called “hair cells” depend on the flow of calcium ions into and out of the cell. Taurine helps restore and control normal calcium ion flow in auditory cells.

Taurine improves the hearing ability in animals exposed to drugs like the antibiotic gentamicin, which is notoriously toxic to hearing. And in a boon for the 17% of us troubled by chronic tinnitus (ringing in the ears), taurine may be helpful in quieting the noise. Animal studies using human equivalent doses of 700 mg to 3.2 grams per day of taurine over the course of several weeks demonstrate near-complete resolution of tinnitus with taurine supplementation (the animals had been trained in tasks that are sensitive to distraction by tinnitus). And a human pilot study has shown encouraging results, with 12% of people responding to taurine supplementation.

Solution for Seizures

While there are many types and many causes of epilepsy (seizures), a disruption in the function of excitable brain tissue underlies all of them. One of taurine’s major roles in mammalian biology is the regulation of such excitable tissues, making taurine of natural interest to scientists and clinicians who study epilepsy.

Animal studies reveal that taurine depletion makes seizures more likely, while supplementation with taurine is capable of preventing seizures induced by a number of drugs and chemical toxins. Taurine appears to work by increasing the levels of glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD), the enzyme responsible for the production of the neurotransmitter GABA, as well as by binding to so-called GABA receptors in brain cells, calming them and reducing their likelihood of participating in the random, uncoordinated electrical firing that produces an epileptic seizure.

Taurine and Energy Drinks

Energy drinks such as Red Bull, Monster, and others have been getting a lot of press recently, most of it unfavorable. There’s concern that the drink’s biggest consumers, adolescents and young adults, are at risk for sudden death and seizures following high consumption.

Because taurine is a major ingredient in these drinks, some readers may be concerned that taurine might be contributing to these ill effects.

The good news (for taurine) is that there’s no evidence at all for taurine’s involvement in any adverse outcome of consuming energy drinks. It has been well-established that the high caffeine content in energy drinks (ranging from 80 milligrams, the amount in a strong cup of coffee, to 300 milligrams per serving) is to blame for the health problems associated with the drink. Side effects of energy drinks are the same as those of caffeine intoxication, and include nervousness, jitteriness, seizures, cardiac arrhythmias, and (rarely) death.

It’s probably best to avoid energy drinks entirely and instead focus on getting your energy from safe, natural sources. Taurine alone offers many of the advantages attributed to energy drinks, such as improved exercise performance.

Taurine Prevents and Treats Liver Disease

Increasing evidence suggests that taurine may help treat the most common cause of liver disease in the US, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (or NAFLD). Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease occurs when too much fat accumulates in the liver, and it can be caused by insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome. Over time, the end result is the loss of liver function, leading to liver cirrhosis.

The human liver is our master detoxifying organ, screening our blood flow many times over each day for substances that can damage our bodies. Taurine is an integral part of the liver’s self-protective mechanisms.

Studies show that taurine defends liver cells against free radicals and toxins, helping to reduce the severity of oxidative stress-induced liver injury. This is vitally important in alcoholic and non-alcoholic fatty liver diseases, both of which can progress to cirrhosis and liver failure.

Human studies reveal the impact of taurine on liver disease. When 24 patients with chronic hepatitis took 2 grams of taurine 3 times daily for 3 months, serum markers of liver damage, as well as markers of oxidative stress, decreased significantly, as did their elevated levels of cholesterol and triglycerides.

Dietary Sources of Taurine

Taurine occurs naturally in food, especially in seafood and meat. The amount consumed in most societies, however, is quite low. The mean daily intake from omnivore diets was determined to be around 58 mg (range of 9 to 372 mg). In another study, taurine intake was estimated to be generally less than 200 mg a day, even in individuals eating a high-meat diet. According to another study, taurine consumption was estimated to vary between 40 and 400 mg a day.

Successful clinical studies with taurine have used daily doses of 1,500 to 3,000 mg. It is challenging to obtain this amount of taurine from traditional dietary sources.

Taurine is made by the body from the metabolism of the amino acid cysteine.9,10 Aging can reduce the amount of taurine made from cysteine, thus making taurine supplementation desirable in maturing individuals.

Taurine is not abundant in most plant foods. On average, non-vegetarians typically eat around 43-76 mg of taurine per day. Vegans have been shown to have lower blood levels of taurine.

Summary

Taurine is the most abundant amino acid you’ve never heard of. Strong evidence suggests that groups with the longest life spans consume higher amounts of taurine than those of us in the rest of the world. High intakes of taurine could be the underlying factor in the world’s longest-living populations—and for good reason.

Taurine supplementation can mitigate the damaging effects of fat, glucose, and excess insulin. Taurine strengthens and protects heart muscle cells and the system of blood vessels that supplies blood throughout the body, helping to protect against atherosclerosis, heart attacks, and strokes.

And taurine protects vision and hearing. It can prevent and alleviate seizures, and it has been shown to treat the most common cause of liver disease in the United States.

With epidemiological evidence that it contributes to the longevity of famously long-lived groups, taurine belongs on the short-list of supplements necessary for maintaining optimal health in the face of aging.

If you have any questions on the scientific content of this article, please call a Life Extension® Health Advisor at 1-866-864-3027.

Taurine: One of the Most Essential Substances in the Body!

It increases the action of insulin, improving glucose tolerance, and acting as an antioxidant.
It is vital for the proper function of the minerals potassium, calcium, magnesium, and sodium.
Taurine regulates heart rhythm, cardiac contraction, blood pressure, and platelet aggregation, and regulates the excitability of neurons.
It detoxifies liver cells of various toxins.
It helps form bile acids and maintains cell membrane stability.
It reduces the synthesis of lipids and cholesterol that are associated with atherosclerosis.

By Ian Macleavy

Taurine Grows New Brain Cells

For years, scientists believed brain shrinkage was inevitable and irreversible.

Cutting-edge research has shown that brain cells can regenerate.

An amino acid called taurine plays an important role in creating new brain cells.

Researchers found that taurine increased the growth of brain cells by activating “sleeping” stem cells. Taurine also increased the survival of new neurons, resulting in an increase in adult brain cell creation.

Recent studies reveal that taurine has unique biochemical properties that promote new brain cell formation. Animal studies show that taurine triggers new brain cells to grow in the hippocampus, the area of the brain most concerned with memory. This can lead to dramatic improvements in cognition and recall. Low levels of taurine have been observed in patients with Parkinson’s disease.

In addition to these impressive brain benefits, taurine also boosts cardiac function and reduces arterial stiffness as well as reducing the negative impacts of metabolic syndrome. In fact, taurine supplementation added to the drug metformin has been shown to offer tremendous reductions in tissue damage.

Taurine levels fall significantly with age, leaving the brain, heart, kidneys, and other tissues deprived of this vital healing compound—one capable of rescuing dying cells and restoring cellular communication.

Experts are beginning to recognize that with age, many can experience a taurine deficiency that is a real and fundamental threat to health.

The great news is that taurine is a super low-cost supplement, meaning everyone can benefit from its potential to slow and reverse degenerative processes.

For years, scientists believed that brain shrinkage (atrophy) was an unstoppable degenerative process. New research reveals this loss of brain matter is partially caused by reversible processes. This knowledge opens the door to a new paradigm—one that aims to restore brain structure and function—as opposed to simply treating the symptoms.

One of the chief requirements for growing fresh brain cells is a little known amino acid: taurine. Taurine has a surprising number of critical actions concerning how cells protect and renew themselves.

Because taurine levels decline with age, older adults are unable to maintain the level of new brain cell formation required to preserve their youthful responses to toxic and metabolic insults. This taurine deficiency may lie at the heart of some of our most dreaded brain disorders.

Studies now show that restoring taurine content in brain cells can reverse these trends, and rejuvenate brain structure and function. Animal studies show that taurine triggers new brain cells to grow in the hippocampus, a brain region centrally involved in memory.

A study published in the journal Stem Cell Research found that taurine supplementation in middle-aged mice increased the growth of new cells in regions of the brain associated with learning and memory. It accomplished this by activating “hibernating” stem cells that were then capable of maturing into several different kinds of cells.

In fact, one study showed that when human neural precursor cells (the early-stage neurons and supporting cells in the brain), were cultured with taurine, it produced significantly more brain cells, demonstrating how taurine stimulates stem-like cells to differentiate into functioning brain cells.

In animals, taurine deficiency impairs brain growth by delaying normal neuronal development. Lab studies show that taurine can reverse this problem. When taurine-deficient brain cells are grown in culture and then taurine is added, it results in a sharp increase in the development of new cells. This is attributed to multiple mechanisms of action, including improved mitochondrial function; activation of genes required for normal proliferation, survival, and energy functioning;2 and blocking chemical signals that inhibit neuronal cell regeneration.

In addition to promoting the growth of new brain cells, taurine enhances neurites, which are tiny projections that help brain cells to communicate with each other. Neurites maximize connections between those cells, along which electrical impulses flow to support memory, cognition, feeling, and thinking. Over time, chemical stresses and toxins can damage these neurites, contributing to slower cognition in older people. A lab study revealed that taurine restores normal neurite growth in nerves exposed to toxic chemicals, largely through its protective effects against chemical stresses.

The findings that taurine can genuinely rejuvenate damaged brains are truly revolutionary, and are beginning to change the way scientists and neurologists are thinking about age- and trauma-related brain changes.

Taurine’s Benefits For Brain Conditions

Two specific conditions taurine has been shown to help benefit are Parkinson’s disease and depression.

Human studies show that taurine plasma levels are reduced in patients with Parkinson’s disease, suggesting both a potential contribution to the disease—and a possible treatment. This problem is compounded by the fact that standard treatment of Parkinson’s symptoms involves the drug levodopa, which may further deplete taurine. This makes it particularly important for Parkinson’s patients to supplement with this versatile amino acid.

Supplementing with taurine is also important for those suffering from depression. Depression is particularly prevalent in diabetics; indeed, there’s a strong school of thought that chronic blood sugar elevations are involved in depression and neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease. Intriguingly, taurine supplementation in diabetic rats has been shown to improve depressive-like behaviors; in addition, supplementation improved the diabetes-damaged neurotransmitter function, which helped lead to improved short-term memory.

Taurine Promotes Brain Cell Regeneration

Taurine is a free amino acid that is vital in slowing key age-accelerating processes, particularly in the central nervous and cardiovascular systems.
Laboratory studies show that taurine can achieve what was once thought to be impossible—stimulate new growth and connections of brain cells, which raises the real possibility for restoration of youthful brain function in older adults.
Taurine levels decrease with age and with metabolic and neurological disease.
Supplementation with taurine, in both animal and human studies, demonstrates the age-decelerating effects of this amino acid.
Laboratory studies reveal dramatic improvements in cognition and memory in taurine-supplemented animals, and suggest that human supplementation might slow or reverse changes seen in Parkinson’s disease.
Taurine supplementation boosts cardiac function and reduces arterial stiffness, both contributors to early death from heart disease and stroke.
Those with metabolic syndrome also stand to gain from taurine supplements, which substantially reduce that syndrome’s negative impacts on cardiovascular risk.

Solving Your Heart’s Energy Crisis

Heart disease remains the leading cause of death in US adults.

A recent study in mice has, for the first time, suggested that taurine might prolong life span by improving heart muscle function. The study used mice genetically engineered to be profoundly taurine deficient, a state that causes premature aging and severe heart problems, eventually resulting in early death. Painstaking work in other animal models revealed why taurine deficiency leads to these severe effects. Taurine deficiency disrupts the “electron transport chain,” which reduces the amount of energy-rich adenosine triphosphate (ATP) available for heart cells to support their contractions, leading to decreased pumping ability of the heart.

That fundamental finding—that low taurine levels contribute to or exacerbate poor heart muscle function—is now being corroborated by lab and animal studies demonstrating improvements in heart or blood vessel performance.

Poor or unregulated control of arterial smooth muscle is a major contributor to high blood pressure and resulting cardiovascular disease. Fortunately, taurine is known to have blood pressure-reducing and heart muscle-protecting effects. In a lab study, human artery segments were immersed in a chemical bath that induced contractions similar to those that occur during an angina episode or heart attack. The addition of taurine to the bath resulted in relaxation of the artery.

Animal and lab studies also show that taurine supplementation can mitigate ischemia-reperfusion injury, a major cause of long-term heart failure and further dysfunction. This type of injury occurs when there is a loss of blood flow to the heart muscle (ischemia) followed by the restoration of blood flow (reperfusion). Both processes can lead to an energy crisis and high amounts of reactive chemicals.

Ischemia-reperfusion injury is severely exacerbated by high sugar intake and diabetes because of negative effects on nervous system signals. Taurine supplementation can abolish those aberrant signals and improve arterial blood pressure following such an injury.

How Taurine Enhances Brain Function

Taurine has the unique ability to help promote new brain cell formation—but its benefits don’t end there. Taurine has several other important properties that preserve and enhance brain function:

Taurine restores to aging brain cells the ability to prevent and clean up after chemical stresses from reactive molecules, to fight brain inflammation, and to generate brain cell relaxing and stimulating signals at appropriate times.
Taurine increases the electrical activity (signaling ability) in nerve cells through effects on calcium, a key element required for proper electrical function of neurons.
Taurine can favorably mimic the actions of certain neurotransmitters, the chemical signals that brain cells use to communicate. From a chemical structural standpoint, taurine closely resembles the neurotransmitter gamma-amino-butyric acid (GABA). GABA is involved in learning, and studies in lower animals demonstrate improvements on simple learning tasks following GABA supplementation.
Taurine supplementation supports learning in higher animals as well. Supplementation in a mouse model of inheritable intellectual disability (fragile X syndrome), which is associated with reduced GABA signaling, stabilized and recovered some cognitive functions to an extent that brought some measures of the animals’ performance close to that of normal mice.

Human Studies Of Taurine’s Cardiovascular Effects

Human studies are demonstrating the impact of taurine’s cardiovascular effects. Large epidemiological studies show that deficiencies in taurine are associated with an increase in cardiovascular risk factors. For example, when compared to people with the highest taurine levels, those with the lowest levels had a 184% increase in the risk of obesity, a 22% increase in the risk of hypertension, and a 120% increase in the risk of elevated cholesterol.

While the risk of taurine deficiency is great, encouraging studies show that supplementation with taurine can reduce risk factors for heart disease. And in fact, intervention studies are now showing that supplementation can rectify heart muscle energy deficiency to the point of improving clinical outcomes.

One of the best examples of this is a Russian study on patients undergoing heart valve replacement and coronary bypass surgery—both of which are huge thieves of cardiac muscle energy. This study showed that supplementation with taurine resulted in improved heart pumping action, reduced the size of the enlarged pumping chambers, lowered triglyceride levels, and significantly improved quality of life. These benefits may help to reduce the rates of sudden death after cardiac surgery, which remain unacceptably high. As is typical with many mainstream doctors, if something costs virtually nothing, as taurine does, they overlook its critical lifesaving properties.

Congestive Heart Failure

Taurine has been shown to have protective effects against congestive heart failure, a common, energy-related complication in heart attack survivors, cardiac surgery patients, and people with hypertension or severe lung disease; it results from an inability of the heart to pump sufficient blood to meet the demands of the body.

In a study published in the journal Clinical Cardiology, patients with congestive heart failure took either a placebo or 2,000 mg of taurine three times a day. Compared to placebo recipients, supplemented patients experienced significant improvements in the severity of their heart failure, and significant increases in measurements of the heart’s ability to pump blood. In addition, none of the taurine-supplemented patients worsened during treatment, while 29% of placebo subjects did.

In a similarly designed study, heart failure patients who took 500 mg of taurine three times a day experienced increases in exercise time and distance, and increased ability to utilize cardiac energy, compared with placebo. This is a graphic example of how taurine can affect heart muscle energy production, making it more efficient and helping to energize tired heart muscle.

Another study of heart failure patients showed that taurine supplementation (3 grams per day for six weeks) resulted in significant changes in echocardiogram results, which showed improvements in the pumping action of the left ventricle, the chamber that pumps blood out to the entire body.

Clearly, ample blood taurine levels are required for proper heart functioning and this data was published by Life Extension® decades ago based on what cardiologists in Japan had discovered when treating congestive heart failure patients with 3 grams of taurine per day. Let’s now look at some ways that taurine can reduce the risks for developing cardiovascular disease in the first place.

Taurine Reduces Metabolic Syndrome

Metabolic syndrome is the combination of central obesity, high blood pressure, insulin resistance/borderline high blood sugar, elevated triglyceride levels, and low HDL cholesterol levels. It is strongly associated with short- and long-term risks of cardiovascular and kidney disease, diabetes, cancer, and death.

Taurine supplements have been found to be extremely effective in reducing harmful effects of metabolic syndrome—while at the same time inducing changes that reduce the syndrome’s long-term impact on cardiovascular risk.

Studies of diabetic and/or obese mice and rats demonstrate that taurine leads to consistent improvements in multiple components of metabolic syndrome, including insulin secretion and sensitivity and glucose tolerance.

One study also showed that taurine-deficient mice develop kidney changes identical to those in human diabetic nephropathy, the leading cause of end-stage kidney disease. This suggests that taurine supplementation in metabolic syndrome patients might lower renal disease risk.

And, in a remarkable pair of studies, taurine was shown to amplify the beneficial effects of metformin, a naturally derived antidiabetic drug with multiple health-promoting effects in metabolic syndrome. In the first study, when rats were treated with both taurine and metformin, they were better protected against chemical and metabolic stresses than when either was used alone. For the second study, the combination of taurine supplementation and metformin was found to provide the same pattern of protection as insulin against diabetes-induced metabolic changes, including preservation of renal function.

Human Studies Of Taurine And Metabolic Syndrome

Human studies demonstrated just how important taurine supplementation is for people with metabolic syndrome, which exacerbates the age-related decline in taurine levels. Compared with healthy people, obese people have as much as a 41% reduction in taurine levels compared with healthy controls, while diabetics have a 30% reduction in taurine levels.

The good news is that supplementing with taurine significantly reduces many of the risk factors faced by those with metabolic syndrome. For example, at doses of 3 grams per day for eight weeks, a group of obese adults had significant 29% reductions in plasma markers of inflammation (hs-CRP) and 20% reduction in lipid peroxidation (thiobarbituric acid reducing substances.)

And when diabetics supplemented with 1.5 grams per day, not only were their taurine levels restored to normal, but their platelet aggregation was reduced to levels seen in healthy controls. (Platelet aggregation is elevated in diabetics, increasing the risk for stroke- or heart attack-inducing blood clots.) This study also involved a laboratory test of platelet aggregation, which showed that while taurine reduced aggregation in blood from diabetic patients, it had no effect at all on blood from healthy controls. (This is a safety concern about virtually all prescription antiplatelet drugs).

In addition to the heart disease and stroke risk induced by aggressive platelet aggregation, diabetics (and even nondiabetic people with chronically “high normal” blood sugar levels) are at increased cardiovascular risk from physical stiffening of their arteries.

Again, taurine supplementation is able to reverse this dangerous state of affairs. In a study published in Diabetes & Vascular Disease Research, young adults with type I diabetes and impaired endothelial function supplemented with 500 mg of taurine three times a day. After just two weeks, their abnormal arterial stiffening and reactivity returned to levels found in controls!

Since type I diabetes (formerly known as “juvenile-onset,” or “insulin-dependent” diabetes) exposes its victims to much greater elevation and fluctuation in glucose levels even than those seen in type II (“adult-onset”) diabetes, seeing this dramatic effect in the more severe form of the disease is especially encouraging for the much larger population of type II diabetics.

Summary

Taurine, a little-known amino acid, can do the seemingly impossible: stimulate new brain cells to grow in adult brains. This capability creates an entirely new paradigm for the ways we think about age-related cognitive decline, and even major neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.

Taurine levels fall as we age, leaving our brains relatively unprotected. Taurine levels are low in people with age-related brain disorders. Animal studies reveal that supplementation can not only restore youthful taurine levels, but also improves deficits in memory and cognition.

Taurine also has a fundamental connection with longevity, particularly related to cardiovascular disorders. Animal studies demonstrate protection against heart disease with taurine supplementation, and human studies show that supplementation produces dramatic improvements in heart and blood vessel function.

People with metabolic syndrome have lower taurine levels than their healthy peers; again, taurine supplementation drives down the detrimental effects of metabolic syndrome while inducing changes that reduce the syndrome’s long-term impact on cardiovascular risk.

A balanced supplement program should aim at restoring youthful levels of nutrients known to counteract the chemical stresses, inflammatory changes, and toxic exposures we experience through life. The evidence for the amino acid taurine suggests that it be included in such a regimen.

By Forrest Ritiker