Scientists have long tried to discover whether popular supplements can slow aging by taurine.
Evidence suggested that the levels of nutrients found in meat and shellfish decreased after middle age of people. In other words, taurine can be considered a marker of healthy aging. An international study in 2023 confirmed that taurine decreased with age, indicating that taurine supplements can slow the aging process in some animal types.
Now, a new study published in Science on Thursday found that taurine levels did not decline with age, but rather remained unchanged throughout adulthood, and also increased in some older adults.
The apparent inconsistency suggests that taurine measurements are not indicators of longevity, raising questions about its use as an anti-aging supplement. The finding was surprised even the authors of a new study after hoping for high levels of taurine in the blood, protected against inflammation and some chronic diseases.
“We did this research to confirm the first thing,” Dr. Luigi Ferucci, director of science at the National Institute of Aging, said at a press conference. “Our aim was not to find the exact same connections, but to find reinforcement.”
When their research was finished, “There was a huge contradiction,” he said. “This contradiction needs to be analyzed more deeply as it could reveal some important mechanisms associated with aging.”
The new findings do not rule out the possibility of boosting taurine with supplements. It could improve the health of some people.
Vijay Yadav, co-author of previous studies and director of the Healthy Longevity Program at Rutgers New Jersey Medical College, said the new data is important to understand how taurine affects the aging process, as it shows that the location of the underlying data collected is important.
One of the biological databases analyzed for his study came from a group of highly homogenous people in Finland, but one of the main sources of data for the new study was the residents of Baltimore, whose population is genetically highly diverse.
“This would suggest that different genetic backgrounds or populations have different taurine values. We cannot pool data from different races and ethnic groups to interpret the results,” he said. “That means we need to define the variables better. The genetic background is certainly important.” Others can include whether an individual has fasted or recently eaten.
It may turn out to be similar to the situation scientists were trying to understand the relationship between blood sugar and diabetes, Yadav said. Initially, it was not known to make a difference when samples were collected, for example, from fasting people or those who were already consuming food.
The human body can make small amounts of taurine, but people get it mostly from food. Shellfish, thick chicken and turkey meat contain the highest levels of taurine. Other meats have medium amounts of taurine. Dairy products have small amounts of amino acids.
To shed light on whether taurine supplements improve health and slow biological aging, Yadav and his colleagues are currently running a double blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial.
Dr. Peter Aberdeel, a geriatric medicine expert and professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University, said the two papers are good examples of how science works. The findings are very different, but “that doesn't mean it's right, it doesn't mean it's wrong,” he added.
“The message from both of these papers is that more research is needed,” Aberdeel said.
