Could taurine be key to anti-ageing?

Taurine is an added ingredient in energy drinks, but is also found naturally in beef, chicken, milk and pork. — dpa

Delaying old age might be a pipedream – more the stuff of airport novels and Celtic tales – but that has not deterred people from trying to find ways to stall or hide the ineluctable.

After all, the global anti-ageing market, taking in medicines, creams and other such would-be elixirs, was worth US$37 billion (RM170.77 billion) in 2021, according to market research company Euromonitor.

That’s about the same as the gross domestic products (GDPs) of Nepal or Estonia, going by World Bank estimates.

But it could well be that one of the most important potential bulwarks against getting old early lies within us all.

Taurine, an amino acid in the human body, "could be an elixir of life within us that helps us live longer and healthier lives," said Dr Vijay Yadav, assistant professor of genetics and development at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons in the United States.

And as taurine is also found in staples such as beef, chicken, milk and pork – and is added as an ingredient in energy drinks – it should be easy to top up.

Assist Prof Yadav teamed up with "dozens of ageing researchers around the world” to look into how taurine affects mice, monkeys and worms.

Their findings, published on June 8 (2023) in the journal Science, showed taurine deficiency to be a "driver of ageing in animals”.

The authors said they do not know for sure if taurine supplements would improve health or increase longevity in humans, though they found people with higher taurine levels have fewer cases of type 2 diabetes, lower obesity levels and reduced hypertension.

A second set of tests found the human body produces more taurine during exercise.

"These are associations, which do not establish causation, but the results are consistent with the possibility that taurine deficiency contributes to human ageing," Assist Prof Yadav said. – dpa