Even researchers from the pro-taurine anti-aging study recommend against experimenting with taurine, but if you want to give it a try, what daily dose might be best?
The Best Daily Dose of Taurine
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Below is an approximation of this video’s audio content. To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video.
The remarkable trial showing that taurine supplementation improved the lifespan and healthspan of animals used doses that may far exceed the recommended safe consumption limits in humans. At the press conference, the corresponding author said that they would not recommend people to start taking taurine supplements to try to preserve health or slow aging. Not only do we have no human studies showing that kind of benefit, but we don’t even know the potential risks, since we don’t have large long-term human safety trials. In my last video, I talked about those who might be particularly sensitive to taurine, and what happens, at least in the short term, if we exceed recommended intakes. If, after careful consideration, you still want to give it a try, what source, dose, and frequency might be best?
In terms of frequency, the bump in our bloodstream only lasts about six hours; so, we’d presumably want to take split doses to maintain higher levels––for example, three times a day, like at every meal.
What dose? Well, just for context, most people get between 40 and 400 mg a day through their diet; so, that’s like a normal typical daily dose.
If our goal is to restore youthful levels, we’d want to bump up our levels from around the 50-micromole range to maybe the 100 or 200 range.
Here’s a study where participants got 400mg a day, up at the higher end of a normal dietary dose, for a week, and got levels into that upper range. Here, a two-gram daily dose also pushed levels into that target range, but unfortunately, studies are all over the place. Here’s a good illustration of why using a blood target level doesn’t work. These 10 people were given one gram of taurine three times a day for a month. First of all, see how they started all over the place, from 18 to more than 600? And after a month, most of their levels went up, but sometimes they actually went down. And this measured levels in the plasma or serum—the liquid part of the blood. Levels in the blood cells themselves can be hundreds of times higher, and levels in whole blood don’t seem to correlate with levels in plasma; so, should we measure taurine in whole blood? But whole blood levels don’t move as much or even in any significant amount in response to supplementation.
In this study, researchers gave people 1.66 grams twice a day, shooting up plasma levels to a thousand; yet, at the end of the week, there was no change in levels in the muscle, based on muscle biopsies. The body didn’t seem to care what was happening in the blood—it kept the tissue levels stable. In contrast, when rats are given taurine, the levels of taurine in their muscles go up. So, maybe taurine is like the NAD-booster debacle? You can rewatch my webinar for a recap, but remember how NAD also declined with age, and restoration of youthful levels with supplements caused all these amazing benefits in lab animals. So, a gazillion-dollar NAD supplement industry was born. But, when finally put to the test in people, they totally flopped—and no wonder. In rodents, these supplements actually boosted NAD levels in their tissues, but we’re not rodents, and the supplements all failed to raise levels in our muscles.
So, maybe when we have human trials on taurine, they’ll also fail in the same way, but maybe not. For those who don’t want to wait, what dose should we shoot for? We really have no idea, but from all the human trials that have been done, the most commonly used dose in the blood pressure-lowering trials, which is probably the best demonstrated benefit that also best lowers oxidative stress and inflammation is about 1.5 grams a day; so, that would be 500mg three times a day. Okay, that’s the dose and the frequency, but what’s the best source? That’s exactly what I’ll cover, next.
Please consider volunteering to help out on the site.
- Singh P, Gollapalli K, Mangiola S, et al. Taurine deficiency as a driver of aging. Science. 2023;380(6649):eabn9257.
- Vidal Valero M. Taurine supplement makes animals live longer - what it means for people is unclear. Nature. Jun 9, 2023.
- McGaunn J, Baur JA. Taurine linked with healthy aging. Science. 2023;380(6649):1010-1011.
- Ghandforoush-Sattari M, Mashayekhi S, Krishna CV, Thompson JP, Routledge PA. Pharmacokinetics of oral taurine in healthy volunteers. J Amino Acids. 2010;2010:346237.
- Shao A, Hathcock JN. Risk assessment for the amino acids taurine, L-glutamine and L-arginine. Regul Toxicol Pharmacol. 2008;50(3):376-399.
- Trautwein EA, Hayes KC. Plasma and whole blood taurine concentrations respond differently to taurine supplementation (Humans) and depletion (Cats). Z Ernahrungswiss. 1995;34(2):137-142.
- Vidot H, Cvejic E, Carey S, et al. Randomised clinical trial: oral taurine supplementation versus placebo reduces muscle cramps in patients with chronic liver disease. Aliment Pharmacol Ther. 2018;48(7):704-712.
- Jang ES, Hwang SH, Kim JW, Jeong SH. Effectiveness of 4-week oral taurine treatment for muscle cramps in patients with liver cirrhosis: a single-arm pilot study. Yonsei Med J. 2021;62(1):21-28.
- Trautwein EA, Hayes KC. Taurine concentrations in plasma and whole blood in humans: estimation of error from intra- and interindividual variation and sampling technique. Am J Clin Nutr. 1990;52(4):758-764.
- Galloway SDR, Talanian JL, Shoveller AK, Heigenhauser GJF, Spriet LL. Seven days of oral taurine supplementation does not increase muscle taurine content or alter substrate metabolism during prolonged exercise in humans. J Appl Physiol (1985). 2008;105(2):643-651.
- Yatabe Y, Miyakawa S, Miyazaki T, Matsuzaki Y, Ochiai N. Effects of taurine administration in rat skeletal muscles on exercise. J Orthop Sci. 2003;8(3):415-419.
- Yoshino J, Baur JA, Imai SI. Nad+ intermediates: the biology and therapeutic potential of nmn and nr. Cell Metab. 2018;27(3):513-528.
- Conlon N, Ford D. A systems-approach to NAD+ restoration. Biochem Pharmacol. 2022;198:114946.
- Okabe K, Yaku K, Uchida Y, et al. Oral administration of nicotinamide mononucleotide is safe and efficiently increases blood nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide levels in healthy subjects. Front Nutr. 2022;9:868640.
Motion graphics by Avo Media
Below is an approximation of this video’s audio content. To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video.
The remarkable trial showing that taurine supplementation improved the lifespan and healthspan of animals used doses that may far exceed the recommended safe consumption limits in humans. At the press conference, the corresponding author said that they would not recommend people to start taking taurine supplements to try to preserve health or slow aging. Not only do we have no human studies showing that kind of benefit, but we don’t even know the potential risks, since we don’t have large long-term human safety trials. In my last video, I talked about those who might be particularly sensitive to taurine, and what happens, at least in the short term, if we exceed recommended intakes. If, after careful consideration, you still want to give it a try, what source, dose, and frequency might be best?
In terms of frequency, the bump in our bloodstream only lasts about six hours; so, we’d presumably want to take split doses to maintain higher levels––for example, three times a day, like at every meal.
What dose? Well, just for context, most people get between 40 and 400 mg a day through their diet; so, that’s like a normal typical daily dose.
If our goal is to restore youthful levels, we’d want to bump up our levels from around the 50-micromole range to maybe the 100 or 200 range.
Here’s a study where participants got 400mg a day, up at the higher end of a normal dietary dose, for a week, and got levels into that upper range. Here, a two-gram daily dose also pushed levels into that target range, but unfortunately, studies are all over the place. Here’s a good illustration of why using a blood target level doesn’t work. These 10 people were given one gram of taurine three times a day for a month. First of all, see how they started all over the place, from 18 to more than 600? And after a month, most of their levels went up, but sometimes they actually went down. And this measured levels in the plasma or serum—the liquid part of the blood. Levels in the blood cells themselves can be hundreds of times higher, and levels in whole blood don’t seem to correlate with levels in plasma; so, should we measure taurine in whole blood? But whole blood levels don’t move as much or even in any significant amount in response to supplementation.
In this study, researchers gave people 1.66 grams twice a day, shooting up plasma levels to a thousand; yet, at the end of the week, there was no change in levels in the muscle, based on muscle biopsies. The body didn’t seem to care what was happening in the blood—it kept the tissue levels stable. In contrast, when rats are given taurine, the levels of taurine in their muscles go up. So, maybe taurine is like the NAD-booster debacle? You can rewatch my webinar for a recap, but remember how NAD also declined with age, and restoration of youthful levels with supplements caused all these amazing benefits in lab animals. So, a gazillion-dollar NAD supplement industry was born. But, when finally put to the test in people, they totally flopped—and no wonder. In rodents, these supplements actually boosted NAD levels in their tissues, but we’re not rodents, and the supplements all failed to raise levels in our muscles.
So, maybe when we have human trials on taurine, they’ll also fail in the same way, but maybe not. For those who don’t want to wait, what dose should we shoot for? We really have no idea, but from all the human trials that have been done, the most commonly used dose in the blood pressure-lowering trials, which is probably the best demonstrated benefit that also best lowers oxidative stress and inflammation is about 1.5 grams a day; so, that would be 500mg three times a day. Okay, that’s the dose and the frequency, but what’s the best source? That’s exactly what I’ll cover, next.
Please consider volunteering to help out on the site.
- Singh P, Gollapalli K, Mangiola S, et al. Taurine deficiency as a driver of aging. Science. 2023;380(6649):eabn9257.
- Vidal Valero M. Taurine supplement makes animals live longer - what it means for people is unclear. Nature. Jun 9, 2023.
- McGaunn J, Baur JA. Taurine linked with healthy aging. Science. 2023;380(6649):1010-1011.
- Ghandforoush-Sattari M, Mashayekhi S, Krishna CV, Thompson JP, Routledge PA. Pharmacokinetics of oral taurine in healthy volunteers. J Amino Acids. 2010;2010:346237.
- Shao A, Hathcock JN. Risk assessment for the amino acids taurine, L-glutamine and L-arginine. Regul Toxicol Pharmacol. 2008;50(3):376-399.
- Trautwein EA, Hayes KC. Plasma and whole blood taurine concentrations respond differently to taurine supplementation (Humans) and depletion (Cats). Z Ernahrungswiss. 1995;34(2):137-142.
- Vidot H, Cvejic E, Carey S, et al. Randomised clinical trial: oral taurine supplementation versus placebo reduces muscle cramps in patients with chronic liver disease. Aliment Pharmacol Ther. 2018;48(7):704-712.
- Jang ES, Hwang SH, Kim JW, Jeong SH. Effectiveness of 4-week oral taurine treatment for muscle cramps in patients with liver cirrhosis: a single-arm pilot study. Yonsei Med J. 2021;62(1):21-28.
- Trautwein EA, Hayes KC. Taurine concentrations in plasma and whole blood in humans: estimation of error from intra- and interindividual variation and sampling technique. Am J Clin Nutr. 1990;52(4):758-764.
- Galloway SDR, Talanian JL, Shoveller AK, Heigenhauser GJF, Spriet LL. Seven days of oral taurine supplementation does not increase muscle taurine content or alter substrate metabolism during prolonged exercise in humans. J Appl Physiol (1985). 2008;105(2):643-651.
- Yatabe Y, Miyakawa S, Miyazaki T, Matsuzaki Y, Ochiai N. Effects of taurine administration in rat skeletal muscles on exercise. J Orthop Sci. 2003;8(3):415-419.
- Yoshino J, Baur JA, Imai SI. Nad+ intermediates: the biology and therapeutic potential of nmn and nr. Cell Metab. 2018;27(3):513-528.
- Conlon N, Ford D. A systems-approach to NAD+ restoration. Biochem Pharmacol. 2022;198:114946.
- Okabe K, Yaku K, Uchida Y, et al. Oral administration of nicotinamide mononucleotide is safe and efficiently increases blood nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide levels in healthy subjects. Front Nutr. 2022;9:868640.
Motion graphics by Avo Media
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Title
The Best Daily Dose of Taurine
LicenseCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Content URLDoctor's Note
It’s worth repeating that the researchers themselves who published the anti-aging study recommended against experimenting with taurine, as we have no long-term human safety trials. I introduced another potential parallel with another class of purported anti-aging supplements: NAD+ boosters like NMN and NR. As I covered in that video series, there were extraordinary lab animal benefits, like with taurine, but when they were tried in humans, they almost universally flopped. No wonder, since NAD boosters affect tissue levels in rodents, but not in humans. And here we go again with taurine. It affects tissue levels in rodents, but apparently not us. So, might we expect to see the same flop? We won’t know until human trials are done, which will probably be never. In the meanwhile, what to do? I guess it depends on your tolerance for risk, but if you do decide to try it, I think a reasonable dosing would be half a gram, three times a day. Where should you get it? That’s the subject of the next video.
This is the fifth in a seven-part video series on taurine. If you missed the previous ones, check out:
- What Is Taurine in Energy Drinks? Does It Benefit Cognitive or Athletic Performance?
- Taurine Supplementation Increases Lifespan and Healthspan in Animals
- Randomized Controlled Trials of Taurine Supplementation in Humans
- Caveats and Side Effects of Taurine Supplements
Stay tuned for Where to Find Taurine and the Best Source and Like Beet Juice, Taurine Supplementation May Only Be Safe in the Context of a Plant-Based Diet.
For more on longevity, go to your local public library and check out my book, How Not to Age, available in print, e-book, and audio. (All proceeds I receive from the book are donated directly to charity.)
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