Two 2022 papers investigated taurine’s effects in blood, starting with a review of platelets:
“Taurine is the most abundant free amino acid in the human body, with a six times higher concentration in platelets than any other amino acid. It is highly beneficial for the organism, has many therapeutic actions, and is currently approved for heart failure treatment in Japan. Only the lack of large-scale phase 3 clinical trials restricts taurine use as a therapeutic agent in several other pathologies for treatment of which it has been shown to be effective (hypertension, atherosclerosis, stroke, neurodegenerative diseases, metabolic diseases, e.g., diabetes mellitus, and others).
Because taurine was seen as a non-patentable nutrient, the pharmaceutical industry has not shown much interest in its research. Considering that taurine and its analogues display permissible side effects, along with the need of finding new, alternative antithrombotic drugs with minimal side effects and long-term action, the potential clinical relevance of this fascinating nutrient and its derivatives requires further consideration.”
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/11/3/666/htm “Taurine and Its Derivatives: Analysis of the Inhibitory Effect on Platelet Function and Their Antithrombotic Potential”
Figure 1 provided details of taurine and its derivatives’ effects on various processes involved in platelet activation and aggregation.
A second paper was a rodent study:
“To evaluate chronic effects of taurine on cholesterol levels, we analyzed mice fed a taurine-rich diet for 14–16 weeks. Long-term feeding of taurine lowered plasma cholesterol and bile acids without significantly changing other metabolic parameters, but hardly affected these levels in the liver.
Taurine upregulates transcriptional activity of Cyp7a1 by suppressing FGF21 production in the liver. Bile acids are converted from blood cholesterol by CYP7A1, and more efficiently enter enterohepatic circulation via taurine conjugation.
This study shows that long-term feeding of taurine lowers both plasma cholesterol and bile acids, reinforcing that taurine effectively prevents hypercholesterolemia.”
https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/23/3/1793/htm “Long-Term Dietary Taurine Lowers Plasma Levels of Cholesterol and Bile Acids”
A human equivalent of this male C57BL/6J mouse 16-week taurine intervention is roughly 17 years. That strain’s male maximum lifespan is around 800 days, and human maximum lifespan is currently 122.5 years.
Surface Your Real Self 