Research suggests taurine could be key to extending human life

Life extension is one of the hottest topics in modern medicine. Proper diet and better access to medical care are two important ways people can help extend their lives but there are also natural supplements that have gotten a lot of attention for their health benefits.

One of the interesting chemicals that could help you push your lifespan to its limits is taurine. Research published in June 2023 in Science revealed that a lack of taurine in animals played a major role in their aging. But what is taurine and how can you up your levels of this wonder chemical?

Taurine is an amino that can be found in all kinds of food sources and is often added to energy drinks in order to improve brain function according to NBC News. However, low levels of this often-neglected amino acid can speed up the aging process in some animals. 

This was the major finding that researchers revealed with their work on diet and taurine in animal models that supplementing the all-too-important nutrient in their test subjects slowed down the aging process and allowed them to live longer happier lives.

“This is a really exciting time,” said study co-author Vijay Yadav, an Assistant Professor of Genetics and Development at the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, according to a June 2023 NBC News report on his research. 

Yadav added that research was now exploring how taurine, along with a number of other chemicals, could help improve human health. However, taurine has proven to be one of the most interesting so far based on the results of  Yadav and his co-author's research. 

Yadav and his co-authors studied the taurine concentration levels in mice, monkeys, and humans in order to see if they could find a link between the chemical and health. What they found was nothing short of astonishing and led them to call for more study. 

Taurine-fed mice lived much longer than the control group of mice that were not fed the key nutrient with the median life of the taurine-supplemented mice being 10% to 12% and life expectancy at 28 months increased by roughly 18% to 25% the study reported. 

The study noted that any meaningful anti-aging therapy would not only need to increase life span but also improve the health of an individual as they aged so they could enjoy the additional life. It was here that the researchers made big discoveries about taurine in mice that could help humans someday. 

It turns out the mice treated with taurine showed improved functioning across the board and the study’s authors noted in their research that mice enjoyed better bone, muscle, pancreas, brain, fat, gut, and immune system functioning—indicating improved health. 

Researchers also found similar results in monkeys and discovered that the results could transcend species when they tested taurine supplementation in yeast and worms, finding that while worms improved their life spans on taurine, the yeast did not improve however. 

"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," Yadav explained in a press release from Columbia University Irving Medical Center. 

"This study suggests that taurine could be an elixir of life within us that helps us live longer and healthier lives,” Yadav added. However, some scientists at the time were worried about the study and the implications taurine could have on society when labeling an elixir of life. 

Dr. William Willett is a Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health as well as a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and he told CNN in an email that Yadav’s taurine study could prove very problematic. 

“This doesn’t seem like a story ready for prime time, and it could be harmful if people started consuming more animal-sourced foods to increase taurine intake,” Willet said. 

“In our cohorts with over 130,000 men and women followed for up to 30 years (with more than 30,000 deaths), greater intake of animal protein was related to higher overall mortality and mortality from most major diseases,” the Harvard professor continued. 

Willet added that he would like to see more studies on taurine and the effects it could have on the human body when supplemented but added that “we are a long way from suggesting their use.”

Taurine is found in foods with high protein content like meat and fish according to Mayo Clinic, and your body uses it mostly for energy production, which is why it's added to energy drinks and can be bought as a supplement—though Yadav says don’t buy it yet. 

“We do not recommend buying off the shelf,” Yadav said according to CNN. “Our views are that (people) need to wait for the human clinical trials to be completed. The benefits versus the risk factors will depend on the age of the population studied.”