Taurine

THURSDAY, June 8, 2023 -- An amino acid found in meat, fish and energy drinks might be a key regulator of aging in animals, a new study suggests. However, experts warn that no one should start seeing Red Bull as a fountain of youth. Researchers found that deficiencies in the amino acid, called taurine, seemed to be a prime driver of aging in lab mice: Their taurine levels naturally declined with age, but giving middle-aged mice a daily taurine supplement for one year essentially slowed the aging process. Compared with lab mice fed a placebo supplement, the taurine-consuming mice survived 10% to 12% longer. These mice were also more likely to be living their best lab-mouse lives — staying leaner, maintaining stronger bones and muscles, showing fewer depression- and anxiety-like behaviors, and holding on to a "younger-looking" immune system. "Whatever we checked, taurine-supplemented mice were healthier and appeared younger than the control mice," said study leader Vijay Yadav , an assistant professor of genetics and development at Columbia University, in New York City. When the scientists repeated the supplement experiment in middle-aged monkeys, they observed similar effects. One major caution, the researchers and other experts said, is that mice and monkeys, studied in a controlled lab setting, are not people living their complicated lives out in the world. And the research offers no proof that taurine supplements can help humans live longer and healthier. "We do not recommend that people go out and buy taurine off the shelf," Yadav said. Instead, he and his colleagues think taurine supplements should be put to the test in a clinical trial. What that trial would look like is unclear, said study co-author Henning Wackerhage , a professor at Technical University of Munich, in Germany. But broadly, it could mean having middle-aged adults take taurine or a placebo every day, then following them over time to see if there are health differences between the two groups. Taurine is an amino acid that the human body synthesizes naturally, and it is also attained from food. Shellfish offer the biggest dose, Yadav said, but taurine is also found in beef and poultry (especially dark meat) and in small amounts in dairy products. Amino acids are typically "building blocks" that form proteins. But taurine is different, Wackerhage said: It's a free-form molecule that does not get incorporated into proteins. Research has suggested that taurine plays a role in the function of the central nervous system and immune system, and has anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant properties. In people, it has not been clear whether the amino acid helps drive the aging process or "just goes along for the ride," Yadav said. In the new study, published June 8 in the journal Science, the researchers tested taurine supplements in lab animals only. But they did look at some human data, too. They found that among roughly 12,000 older adults in a European health study, those with higher taurine levels were less likely to have obesity or type 2 diabetes. That, however, only shows a correlation — not cause and effect, said Joseph Baur, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, in Philadelphia. It could be that some human diseases drive down taurine levels, said Baur, who wrote a commentary published with the study. But, he added, that chicken-egg problem is why the animal experiments were so crucial. "They show for the first time that increasing taurine can be a driver of increased longevity," Baur noted. Still, that's an important research step — not lifestyle advice. For the average person today, Baur said, a healthy diet, exercise and not smoking should be the "foundation" of any healthy-aging strategy. "New ideas, like taurine supplementation, should always be approached with caution and studied in controlled clinical trials," Baur said. "It's much easier to screw things up than to make them better, even with molecules that seem likely to be safe." Another researcher who was not involved in the study said the findings are scientifically interesting, but worried about how the supplement industry will spin things. "They can start promoting this as an anti-aging supplement tomorrow," said Dr. Pieter Cohen , an associate professor at Harvard Medical School who studies the content and quality of commercial dietary supplements. Cohen noted that in the United States, supplements are not subject to the same regulations that medications are. That means they do not have to be proven effective before they are marketed, and consumers cannot be sure any supplement actually contains what's on the label. Yadav stressed that while taurine is in meat, diets heavy in meat have been tied to ill health effects. And, he said, that's not what his team studied. Nor did they study energy drinks, which would contain lots of other things, like caffeine and sugar. In yet another portion of the study, the researchers had a group of athletes and couch potatoes pedal away on exercise bikes to the point of exhaustion. Afterward, most showed an increased taurine level in the blood. But it's not clear, the experts said, whether regular exercise actually boosts the body's production of taurine, or whether taurine might be one reason that exercise is good for us. The researchers acknowledged that the range of benefits seen in the animal experiments "seem too good to be true." "My take," Wackerhage said, "is that taurine seems to hit the engine room of aging." Cohen had a more guarded take. With something as complicated as human aging, he said, it would be surprising if one amino acid wielded such power. The study was funded by government and foundation grants, and had no supplement industry involvement, the researchers said. Sources Vijay Yadav, PhD, assistant professor, genetics and development, Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York City Henning Wackerhage, PhD, professor, exercise biology, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany Joseph Baur, PhD, professor, physiology, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia Pieter Cohen, MD, general internist, Cambridge Health Alliance, Somerville, Mass., associate professor, medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston Science, June 9, 2023 Posted June 2023

A study finds that deficiency of taurine, a molecule produced in our bodies, drives aging, and taurine supplements can improve health and increase lifespan in animals. A deficiency of taurine -- a nutrient produced in the body and found in many foods -- is a driver of aging in animals, according to a new study led by Columbia researchers and involving dozens of aging researchers around the world. The same study also found that taurine supplements can slow down the aging process in worms, mice, and monkeys and can even extend the healthy lifespans of middle-aged mice by up to 12%. The study was published June 8 in Science. "For the last 25 years, scientists have been trying to find factors that not only let us live longer, but also increase healthspan, the time we remain healthy in our old age," says the study's leader, Vijay Yadav, PhD, assistant professor of genetics & development at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. "This study suggests that taurine could be an elixir of life within us that helps us live longer and healthier lives." Anti-aging molecules within us Over the past two decades, efforts to identify interventions that improve health in old age have intensified as people are living longer and scientists have learned that the aging process can be manipulated. Many studies have found that various molecules carried through the bloodstream are associated with aging. Less certain is whether these molecules actively direct the aging process or are just passengers going along for the ride. If a molecule is a driver of aging, then restoring its youthful levels would delay aging and increase healthspan, the years we spend in good health. Taurine first came into Yadav's view during his previous research into osteoporosis that uncovered taurine's role in building bone. Around the same time, other researchers were finding that taurine levels correlated with immune function, obesity, and nervous system functions. "We realized that if taurine is regulating all these processes that decline with age, maybe taurine levels in the bloodstream affect overall health and lifespan," Yadav says. Taurine declines with age, supplementation increases lifespan in mice First, Yadav's team looked at levels of taurine in the bloodstream of mice, monkeys, and people and found that the taurine abundance decreases substantially with age. In people, taurine levels in 60-year-old individuals were only about one-third of those found in 5-year-olds. "That's when we started to ask if taurine deficiency is a driver of the aging process, and we set up a large experiment with mice," Yadav says. The researchers started with close to 250 14-month-old female and male mice (about 45 years old in people terms). Every day, the researcher fed half of them a bolus of taurine or a control solution. At the end of the experiment, Yadav and his team found that taurine increased average lifespan by 12% in female mice and 10% in males. For the mice, that meant three to four extra months, equivalent to about seven or eight human years. Taurine supplements in middle age improves health in old age To learn how taurine impacted health, Yadav brought in other aging researchers who investigated the effect of taurine supplementation on the health and lifespan in several species. These experts measured various health parameters in mice and found that at age 2 (60 in human years), animals supplemented with taurine for one year were healthier in almost every way than their untreated counterparts. The researchers found that taurine suppressed age-associated weight gain in female mice (even in "menopausal" mice), increased energy expenditure, increased bone mass, improved muscle endurance and strength, reduced depression-like and anxious behaviors, reduced insulin resistance, and promoted a younger-looking immune system, among other benefits. "Not only did we find that the animals lived longer, we also found that they're living healthier lives," Yadav says. At a cellular level, taurine improved many functions that usually decline with age: The supplement decreased the number of "zombie cells" (old cells that should die but instead linger and release harmful substances), increased survival after telomerase deficiency, increased the number of stem cells present in some tissues (which can help tissues heal after injury), improved the performance of mitochondria, reduced DNA damage, and improved the cells' ability to sense nutrients. Similar health effects of taurine supplements were seen in middle-aged rhesus monkeys, which were given daily taurine supplements for six months. Taurine prevented weight gain, reduced fasting blood glucose and markers of liver damage, increased bone density in the spine and legs, and improved the health of their immune systems. Randomized clinical trial needed The researchers do not know yet if taurine supplements will improve health or increase longevity in humans, but two experiments they conducted suggest taurine has potential. In the first, Yadav and his team looked at the relationship between taurine levels and approximately 50 health parameters in 12,000 European adults aged 60 and over. Overall, people with higher taurine levels were healthier, with fewer cases of type 2 diabetes, lower obesity levels, reduced hypertension, and lower levels of inflammation. "These are associations, which do not establish causation," Yadav says, "but the results are consistent with the possibility that taurine deficiency contributes to human aging." The second study tested if taurine levels would respond to an intervention known to improve health: exercise. The researchers measured taurine levels before and after a variety of male athletes and sedentary individuals finished a strenuous cycling workout and found a significant increase in taurine among all groups of athletes (sprinters, endurance runners, and natural bodybuilders) and sedentary individuals. "No matter the individual, all had increased taurine levels after exercise, which suggests that some of the health benefits of exercise may come from an increase in taurine," Yadav says. Only a randomized clinical trial in people will determine if taurine truly has health benefits, Yadav adds. Taurine trials are currently underway for obesity, but none are designed to measure a wide range of health parameters. Other potential anti-aging drugs -- including metformin, rapamycin, and NAD analogs -- are being considered for testing in clinical trials. "I think taurine should also be considered," Yadav says. "And it has some advantages: Taurine is naturally produced in our bodies, it can be obtained naturally in the diet, it has no known toxic effects (although it's rarely used in concentrations used ), and it can be boosted by exercise. "Taurine abundance goes down with age, so restoring taurine to a youthful level in old age may be a promising anti-aging strategy."