Taurine may be a key to longer and healthier life

Date:
June 8, 2023
Source:
Columbia University Irving Medical Center
Summary:
A study finds that deficiency of taurine, a molecule produced
in our bodies, drives aging, and taurine supplements can improve
health and increase lifespan in animals.


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A deficiency of taurine -- a nutrient produced in the body and found in
many foods -- is a driver of aging in animals, according to a new study
led by Columbia researchers and involving dozens of aging researchers
around the world.

The same study also found that taurine supplements can slow down the
aging process in worms, mice, and monkeys and can even extend the healthy lifespans of middle-aged mice by up to 12%.

The study was published June 8 in Science.

"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," says the study's leader, Vijay Yadav,
PhD, assistant professor of genetics & development at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.

"This study suggests that taurine could be an elixir of life within us
that helps us live longer and healthier lives." Anti-aging molecules
within us Over the past two decades, efforts to identify interventions
that improve health in old age have intensified as people are living
longer and scientists have learned that the aging process can be
manipulated.

Many studies have found that various molecules carried through the
bloodstream are associated with aging. Less certain is whether these
molecules actively direct the aging process or are just passengers going
along for the ride. If a molecule is a driver of aging, then restoring
its youthful levels would delay aging and increase healthspan, the years
we spend in good health.

Taurine first came into Yadav's view during his previous research into osteoporosis that uncovered taurine's role in building bone. Around the
same time, other researchers were finding that taurine levels correlated
with immune function, obesity, and nervous system functions.

"We realized that if taurine is regulating all these processes that
decline with age, maybe taurine levels in the bloodstream affect overall
health and lifespan," Yadav says.

Taurine declines with age, supplementation increases lifespan in mice
First, Yadav's team looked at levels of taurine in the bloodstream of
mice, monkeys, and people and found that the taurine abundance decreases substantially with age. In people, taurine levels in 60-year-old
individuals were only about one-third of those found in 5-year-olds.

"That's when we started to ask if taurine deficiency is a driver of the
aging process, and we set up a large experiment with mice," Yadav says.

The researchers started with close to 250 14-month-old female and male
mice (about 45 years old in people terms). Every day, the researcher
fed half of them a bolus of taurine or a control solution. 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 extra months, equivalent to about seven or
eight human years.

Taurine supplements in middle age improves health in old age To learn
how taurine impacted health, Yadav brought in other aging researchers
who investigated the effect of taurine supplementation on the health
and lifespan in several species.

These experts measured various health parameters in mice and found that
at age 2 (60 in human years), animals supplemented with taurine for one
year were healthier in almost every way than their untreated counterparts.

The researchers found that taurine suppressed age-associated weight gain
in female mice (even in "menopausal" mice), increased energy expenditure, increased bone mass, improved muscle endurance and strength, reduced depression-like and anxious behaviors, reduced insulin resistance,
and promoted a younger-looking immune system, among other benefits.

"Not only did we find that the animals lived longer, we also found that
they're living healthier lives," Yadav says.

At a cellular level, taurine improved many functions that usually decline
with age: The supplement decreased the number of "zombie cells" (old
cells that should die but instead linger and release harmful substances), increased survival after telomerase deficiency, 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 sense nutrients.

Similar health effects of taurine supplements were seen in middle-aged
rhesus monkeys, which were given daily taurine supplements for six
months. Taurine prevented weight gain, reduced fasting blood glucose and markers of liver damage, increased bone density in the spine and legs,
and improved the health of their immune systems.

Randomized clinical trial needed The researchers do not know yet if
taurine supplements will improve health or increase longevity in humans,
but two experiments they conducted suggest taurine has potential.

In the first, Yadav and his team looked at the relationship between
taurine levels and approximately 50 health parameters in 12,000 European
adults aged 60 and over. Overall, people with higher taurine levels
were healthier, with fewer cases of type 2 diabetes, lower obesity
levels, reduced hypertension, and lower levels of inflammation. "These
are associations, which do not establish causation," Yadav says, "but
the results are consistent with the possibility that taurine deficiency contributes to human aging." The second study tested if taurine levels
would respond to an intervention known to improve health: exercise. The researchers measured taurine levels before and after a variety of male
athletes and sedentary individuals finished a strenuous cycling workout
and found a significant increase in taurine among all groups of athletes (sprinters, endurance runners, and natural bodybuilders) and sedentary individuals.

"No matter the individual, all had increased taurine levels after
exercise, which suggests that some of the health benefits of exercise
may come from an increase in taurine," Yadav says.

Only a randomized clinical trial in people will determine if taurine
truly has health benefits, Yadav adds. Taurine trials are currently
underway for obesity, but none are designed to measure a wide range of
health parameters.

Other potential anti-aging drugs -- including metformin, rapamycin,
and NAD analogs -- are being considered for testing in clinical trials.

"I think taurine should also be considered," Yadav says. "And it has
some advantages: Taurine is naturally produced in our bodies, it can be obtained naturally in the diet, it has no known toxic effects (although
it's rarely used in concentrations used ), and it can be boosted by
exercise.

"Taurine abundance goes down with age, so restoring taurine to a youthful
level in old age may be a promising anti-aging strategy."
* RELATED_TOPICS
o Health_&_Medicine
# Healthy_Aging # Fitness # Medical_Topics # Teen_Health
o Plants_&_Animals
# Mice # Soil_Types # Rodents # Genetically_Modified
* RELATED_TERMS
o Calorie_restricted_diet o Health_science o Agronomy o
Ketone_bodies o Epidemiology o General_fitness_training o
Antioxidant o Iodine

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
Columbia_University_Irving_Medical_Center. Note: Content may be edited
for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Parminder Singh, Kishore Gollapalli, Stefano Mangiola, Daniela
Schranner,
Mohd Aslam Yusuf, Manish Chamoli, Sting L. Shi, Bruno Lopes
Bastos, Tripti Nair, Annett Riermeier, Elena M. Vayndorf, Judy
Z. Wu, Aishwarya Nilakhe, Christina Q. Nguyen, Michael Muir,
Michael G. Kiflezghi, Anna Foulger, Alex Junker, Jack Devine,
Kunal Sharan, Shankar J. Chinta, Swati Rajput, Anand Rane, Philipp
Baumert, Martin Scho"nfelder, Francescopaolo Iavarone, Giorgia
di Lorenzo, Swati Kumari, Alka Gupta, Rajesh Sarkar, Costerwell
Khyriem, Amanpreet S. Chawla, Ankur Sharma, Nazan Sarper, Naibedya
Chattopadhyay, Bichitra K. Biswal, Carmine Settembre, Perumal
Nagarajan, Kimara L. Targoff, Martin Picard, Sarika Gupta, Vidya
Velagapudi, Anthony T. Papenfuss, Alaattin Kaya, Miguel Godinho
Ferreira, Brian K. Kennedy, Julie K. Andersen, Gordon J. Lithgow,
Abdullah Mahmood Ali, Arnab Mukhopadhyay, Aarno Palotie, Gabi
Kastenmu"ller, Matt Kaeberlein, Henning Wackerhage, Bhupinder Pal,
Vijay K. Yadav. Taurine deficiency as a driver of aging. Science,
2023; 380 (6649) DOI: 10.1126/ science.abn9257 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/06/230608195654.htm

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