2023-06-26 11:45:52
Taurine is a nutrient produced in the body and present in various foods.
A taurine deficiency promotes aging in various animals, including humans, judging by the results of a new study conducted by an international team of dozens of experts.
The same study also found that taurine supplements can slow the aging process in worms, mice, and monkeys, and even extend the healthy life span (the time spent without disease) in middle-aged mice by up to 12 %.
The research team includes, among others, Vijay Yadav of Columbia University in New York, USA, and Parminder Singh, formerly of the National Institute of Immunology in India and now at the Buck Institute for Aging Research, in United States.
Over the last 25 years, a lot of research has been done to find products that not only allow you to live longer, but also increase the level of health in old age. “This study suggests that taurine could be in some way an elixir of life that we carry inside and that helps us live longer and healthier,” says Yadav.
Yadav, Singh, and their colleagues analyzed taurine levels in the bloodstream of mice, monkeys, and humans and found that taurine abundance declines substantially with age. Taurine levels in 60-year-olds were only a third of those found in 5-year-olds.
“That’s when we started to wonder if taurine deficiency is a driver of the aging process, and we set up a big experiment with mice,” explains Yadav.
The researchers started with about 250 14-month-old (about 45 years in human terms) female and male mice. Every day, the diet of half of them was supplemented with a dose of taurine while the diet of the other half was supplemented with a solution without taurine or any other compound of significant action. 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 more months to live, equivalent to about seven to eight human years.
To learn how taurine affects health, Yadav turned to other aging researchers who have studied the effect of taurine supplementation on the health and lifespan of individuals of various species.
These experts measured various health parameters in mice and found that at 2 years of age (equivalent to 60 years in humans), animals supplemented with taurine for one year were healthier in almost all respects than their untreated counterparts. .
The researchers found that taurine suppressed age-associated weight gain in female mice (including in “menopausal” mice), increased energy expenditure, increased bone mass, improved muscle strength and endurance, reduced depressive behaviors, and anxiety, decreased insulin resistance, and promoted a younger-looking immune system, among other benefits.
“We found not only that the animals lived longer, but also that they enjoyed healthier lives,” says Yadav.
At the cellular level, taurine improved many functions that tend to decline with age: The supplement reduced the number of “zombie cells” (old cells that should die but instead persist and release harmful substances), 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 absorb nutrients.
Similar health effects of taurine supplementation were observed in middle-aged rhesus macaque monkeys, which were given daily taurine supplements for six months. Taurine prevented excessive weight gain, lowered fasting blood glucose and markers of liver damage, increased bone density in the spine and legs, and improved immune system health.
Researchers still don’t know for sure whether taurine supplements will improve human health or increase longevity, but there are strong indications that they will do both.
The researchers examined the relationship between taurine levels and approximately 50 health parameters in 12,000 European adults aged 60 and over. In general, people with higher taurine levels were healthier, with fewer cases of type 2 diabetes, lower levels of obesity, lower hypertension, and lower levels of inflammation.
An artist’s rendition of the concept that taurine slows down the aging clock, making life longer and healthier. The substance’s name derives from the fact that it was first found in bulls. (Image: Columbia University Irving Medical Center. CC BY-SA)
It was also investigated whether taurine levels would respond to an intervention known to improve health: physical exercise. The researchers measured taurine levels before and after male athletes of a wide variety of classes as well as sedentary individuals engaged in a strenuous session of cycling. When performing the measurements, they found a significant increase in taurine after that session in all groups of athletes and also in sedentary individuals.
The next step in this line of research will likely be a clinical trial to definitively verify whether taurine actually has the effect it appears to have.
The new study is titled “Taurine deficiency as a driver of aging”. And it has been published in the academic journal Science. (Source: NCYT from Amazings)
#Taurine #aging