Two years ago, a breakthrough study yielded exciting evidence that taurine could help combat aging. But a study just published casts serious doubt on those earlier results. And this is actually a great thing, as I’ll explain.
So is it time to throw your taurine supplements in the garbage? Let’s take a look at what the new study tells us and what it means.
Table of Contents
A recap of the earlier study
Taurine is an amino acid. It’s found naturally in the body, especially in the brain, heart, and muscles. It plays many roles, from energy metabolism to supporting nervous system function. And having too little can cause problems. It leads, for instance, to a condition called cardiomyopathy, which makes it hard for the heart to function properly [1].
And for decades, taurine has been added to energy drinks. But more recently, interest in taurine has surged in relation to aging. And the study from two years ago had a lot to do with this.
So what did that study find? There were actually two key discoveries. The first was about the impact of taurine supplementation. The researchers were interested in the potential for taurine to extend lifespan. They looked at how worms responded to extra taurine. Here’s what they found: the lifespan of worms treated with taurine increased by 10 to 23% [2].
Now worms are a long way from humans. But they also tested taurine’s effects on mice, which are biologically much closer to us. And in this case, the results were equally impressive. Lifespans increased 10 to 12%, and life expectancy at 28 months went up by 18 to 25% [2].
The impact here is huge. You can see why people were excited. But even though we’re closer to mice than worms, we’re still an entirely different species. Should we expect similar results in humans? And this is where the second key discovery in this study comes into play.
As they looked at several different species, the researchers noticed something interesting about taurine levels. It looked like they decreased rapidly with aging. This was true with mice and monkeys. The evidence suggested it was also true for us [2].
Taking these two discoveries together, the researchers came to a striking conclusion. Their reasoning went like this: taurine supplements help mice and worms live longer. And taurine levels in mice and worms drop with age. So the reason taurine supplementation has this effect must be that it makes up for the natural decline in taurine levels. So if we prevent the decline, we slow down aging [2].
It’s a plausible hypothesis that fit their data. And it led to an obvious question: Would this same relationship hold for humans? Could we slow down our aging by boosting our taurine levels? They proposed that testing this in trials would be the next natural step [2].
The new study
But there’s a brand new study that throws this convincing picture into serious doubt.
The scientists behind it noticed something interesting about taurine research. Though the 2023 study made headlines for uncovering a decline in taurine with aging, there are other studies that found the opposite to be true. In fact, as they combed through the literature for this most recent study, they found results were all over the map. Some studies have found a decrease in taurine with age. Some found an increase. Some found no change [3].
The question is: What’s really going on here? And the answer is crucial. Because if taurine doesn’t actually decline with age, the theory put forward in the 2023 study is wrong. And the hope that taurine supplements could help extend lifespan would be undermined.
So that’s what the researchers set out to clarify. What actually happens with taurine levels as we age?
To get a definitive answer to this question, they took a different approach than the 2023 study. It had to do with how they collected the data on taurine levels in relationship to age. And this turns out to be vitally important.
There are two very different ways to do this. One is a cross-sectional analysis. You take a group of people of varying ages, measure their taurine levels, and look for patterns by age. That’s what the authors of the earlier study did. And it appeared that levels declined with age.
But another method is a longitudinal study. You take the same individuals and measure their taurine levels over time—say, 10 years apart. This approach is generally more accurate because it avoids generational or lifestyle confounders.
To see how, consider an example with anxiety. Cross-sectional data might suggest younger people are more anxious. But longitudinal data might reveal that today’s elderly simply experienced different conditions when they were young. So it’s not aging that’s reducing anxiety—it’s generational differences.
So in this new study on taurine, they included both cross-sectional and longitudinal data. For humans, they used the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging, with blood samples from participants taken 3 to 5 times over about 8 years. The cohort ranged in age from 26 to 100 [3].
They also included cross-sectional data from two other human cohorts, and longitudinal data for primates and mice.
They identified a consistent pattern across these different data sources. Taurine levels did not decline with age. In fact, the opposite seems to happen [3].
This overturns one of the key assertions from the 2023 study. And that claim was important because it played a central role in the story about taurine and aging. If taurine drops naturally as we age, then maintaining our levels through supplements could help combat aging. But it now appears levels don’t drop.
And the differences in levels between individuals tend to be greater than the differences across a lifetime. This would make it really hard to try to specify appropriate levels of taurine at a particular season in life. That, in turn, would mean we can’t look to taurine levels as a measure of how much we’re aging, biologically speaking [3].
What’s more, the researchers found taurine levels don’t seem to correlate consistently with markers of aging. They examined muscle strength and body weight—standard biomarkers of aging—but found no consistent link [3].
So what does all this mean for the 2023 study? The key data point is this: taurine levels don’t drop as we age. The takeaway is that the proposed link between taurine and aging doesn’t seem to hold. Low circulating taurine isn’t a driver of aging. And, therefore, supplementing with taurine probably isn’t going to slow it.
It seems like these results should be really disappointing, and I’ll explain what I’m going to do with taurine supplements in a moment. But these new results are actually a good thing. Let me explain why.
Studies like this one show us the process of making scientific progress is working as it’s supposed to. We move forward by proposing theories, testing them, and then continuing to refine our understanding. A key part of the process is careful, rigorous testing of our assumptions—and often retesting things other researchers have already looked at.
This study gives us a great example. Researchers in the 2023 study said taurine declines with age. But those behind this newest study had concerns about the methods used in that earlier study. They wanted to see what longitudinal data might reveal. They did the hard work. And now we know: that earlier conclusion was too hasty. We need to go back to the drawing board. Uncovering misunderstandings is part of moving forward. And now we understand taurine better than we did before.
What now?
But this leaves me personally with a very practical question. I take a taurine supplement as part of MicroVitamin+ Powder. Does it make any sense to keep doing that?
Well, as I’ve thought about the results of this new study, I still have a nagging question. Why did taurine increase the lifespans of yeast, worms, and mice in the 2023 study? I’d like to see the Interventions Testing Program take a careful look at taurine supplements to confirm those earlier results. It may turn out to be the case that the benefits are real but we don’t yet understand the mechanism.
Other taurine benefits
Leaving that question aside, though, extending lifespan wasn’t the reason I started taking taurine in the first place. I make my health decisions based on human data. Not preclinical data.
And in this case, research has uncovered some intriguing benefits. For instance, a new study published last year looked at measures related to metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome is a significant health concern because it increases the risks of heart disease, strokes, type 2 diabetes, and chronic inflammation [4].
Despite numerous clinical studies that show the diverse health benefits of taurine, there are inconsistencies. That makes it a challenge to say for sure whether taurine reduces the risk of metabolic syndrome. And that’s why this new study was done. The authors wanted to clarify taurine’s effectiveness.
So they conducted a meta-analysis of 25 randomized clinical trials involving over 1,000 participants. It found that taurine decreased fasting blood sugar levels, blood pressure, triglycerides, LDL cholesterol, HbA1c, and insulin levels [4].
But it had no effect on body weight. The doses used in the studies varied between 1 and 6 g per day. And the analysis showed that taurine is safe [4].
However, it’s worth noting some cautions with this data. Of the 25 studies, 18 lacked crucial information about how they were conducted, putting them at risk of bias. The remaining 7 had a low risk of bias. None had a high risk [4].
Another crucial issue is the short duration of the included studies. Most lasted no more than 2 months, with only a few extending up to a year [4].
So due to these limitations, the authors stress the need for longer-term studies to validate taurine’s effects.
But there’s also data showing taurine might help with heart health. One study of 120 individuals with high blood pressure showed taurine lowered blood pressure by over 7 units [5].
And it improved how blood vessels respond to and regulate pressure [5].
There’s also evidence that taurine supplementation improves cardiac performance in those suffering from heart failure [6].
Again, we could use more evidence to strengthen our conclusions.
Takeaway
But if that’s true, why do I still take taurine?
For me it’s simple. Even if it is preliminary, we have a wide variety of experimental results that all point in the same direction. Taurine seems to have a number of significant impacts on parameters connected to living a healthier life.
But we always need to think about safety. We have to weigh the benefits against the costs. In this case, the evidence we have is that taurine is safe.
On the point of safety, there has been a new study on cancer cells that caused a lot of confusion online. It identified taurine as a regulator of myeloid cancers [7].
But this was a study of existing cancer cells in a petri dish. Similar to how glucose or NAD can accelerate cancer growth in a dish. This is very, very different from the effects in the human body.
So there are strong potential benefits of taurine, and from the human studies we have so far, there are no known risks with supplementation. This picture could change in the future with better data. But for now, I am continuing to include taurine in MicroVitamin and MicroVitamin+ Powder.
We’re already on formula version 6, and formula version 7 has started to roll out in the USA. So it’s not like taurine is locked into MicroVitamin and that’s why I’m saying I still take it. I include taurine in MicroVitamin because I personally want to continue taking it.
When the research points to the need to make a change, I won’t hesitate to do so. And just because I take a supplement, that in no way means you need to also.
So, for now, it looks like taurine might not be the key to extending lifespan many hoped. But there’s another supplement that’s been around for years that’s starting to show some exciting promise in this area. Watch this next article to find out what it is and the latest research that’s revealing its potential impact.
