#161

Do you mean that it acts on nervous system differently in different ppl?

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#162

Taurine influence the brain through Gabaergic receptors. The effect we get from this seems to vary between individuals. Either experiencing a sleepy feeling/brainfog or the opposite with more energy and being more alert.

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#163

Makes me very tired during the day and I get crazy sleep. If I wake up, then I just lay there the rest of the night half asleep. Been on it maybe 2 weeks, 2g morning and 2g night.

Taurine is out of my stack. Happy to see it go.

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#164

I think that’s the wrong conclusion to take from this. I think the fact that taurine and beta-alanine share a transporter is a reason to make sure to not take beta-alanine without also taking some taurine to offset the possible depletion of taurine from tissues. That’s what I’ve been doing for many years personally.

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#165

My reading of the info on this implies taking beta-alanine at a materially different time to taurine (if you take beta-alanine).

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#166

It would seem if beta-alanine competes for active sites with taurine, and if you normally consume “enough” animal protein (or at least “taurine-sufficient proteins of any kind — not proposing any dietary recommendations), then when you take your beta-alanine (likely for carnosine production to prevent AGE “advanced glycation end-products” issues, at least for my thinking) it will lower taurine processing, but this will quickly return when the spike of beta-alanine is processed. And thus, as you (@John_Hemming) said, if you separate supplementation of the two, taurine levels (or at least processing) will only be impacted for a period during the day. So then the questions for me become:

  1. is there a reason to take beta-alanine/carnosine in addition to some taurine source (supplement or dietary)?

  2. when to take beta-alanine and taurine, versus sleep schedule and workout schedule? (A related question: how long is that “spike” in beta-alanine processing within normal/discussed doses, and how long does it impact taurine? — an hour? — five hours? — a day?)

  3. if you are getting “more than sufficient” taurine from dietary sources (and appearing to be seeing “potential typical taurine supplementation markers) is there a need for a separate “signaling” taurine dose? (Certainly I feel substantially different effects of pure glycine doses versus glycine within collagen or steak, even in comparable or greater amounts, so this is not a leading/argumentative question.)

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#167

I recently switched to taurine from beta-alinine because of studies showing that the former has renoprotective properties. I have kidney disease, which dictates everything I put into my mouth. My numbers have improved dramatically in the last few years, which correspond with changes in diet as well as supplementation with rapa, AKG, spermidine and taurine.

It would be impossible to determine which of these has been most beneficial, but it’s clear that none of them are hurting. I think the most important changes were going vegetarian and taking high daily doses of sodium bicarbonate.

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#168

Thanks Curious and Tim, I took 1 gram post workout today (the size of 1 capsule) as I forgot to take it before I went to the gym. I will report back tomorrow how I slept. :slight_smile:

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#169

If I take it during the day I get brainfog. The best time for me to take it, is if I wake up early in the night. Since I dont know if that will happen I take it when I am on my way to bed.

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#170

Thanks for the movie Curious. This makes me think I need to be taking around 4gms per day (I am not a large person).

My test yesterday went okay, I slept okay and no dry mouth so far. I might try taking 2gms with lunch and dinner and see how that goes.

One positive effect that I have noticed is that my lung capacity and sense of space in my sinuses feels like it has increased.

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#171

Hi @karismac,

I am finding that the caffeine-taurine combination is highly disruptive to my sleep. There is at least one study that shows a synergistic effect between the two, which may cause me to drop the caffeine. Let us know how it goes.

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#172

I am with you, it hasn’t been a great experiment for me so far. I am ready to give it one more shot and see if taking it with meals helps settle down the bad side effects. I don’t tolerate anything for long that messes with my sleep.

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#173

I can’t drink coffee unfortunately, one cup in the morning keeps me awake for 2 nights. Strange I know :upside_down_face:

Things changed dramatically today with the Taurine. I pushed through and took two 1000 mg capsules twice a day with food for the last few days. I taped my mouth shut at night to stop it getting dry which worked well.

The first night I woke up at 4am and couldn’t get back to sleep. I stressed about it for awhile but then noticed how rested I felt and decided to just get up and do some writing. I did get back to sleep about 6am and slept until 7.30am.

The following night was similar but this time I decided not to go back to sleep at all. I kind of got this idea that instead of seeing it as negative maybe the Taurine was causing me to need less sleep.

Last night I woke again but did get back to sleep. My sleep tracker showing I had an amazing nights sleep. Over three hours of deep sleep and lots of REM sleep too. My HRV score and breathing was also excellent.

Today I took the full 4gms pre work out and had a really great gym session pushing through the discomfort barrier much further than usual. I also felt motivated to mix thing up and add some new resistance sets and wake up some new muscle groups.

The racing heart and dry mouth has totally gone today. I will see how I sleep tonight but feel that things are changing quickly with this now. The Taurine has opened my lung and sinuses and I am beginning to feel hopeful that it might work for me after all.

The slight forgetfulness I was experiencing is also passing.

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#174

Since my last post appears to have been helpful I will keep sharing my Taurine journey.

My sleep last night was amazing I woke at 4.30am but got back into REM sleep pretty fast. Again I got excellent scores with 2 hours and 45 minutes deep sleep and other metrics including heart dip excellent. The heart dip in fact better than ever. This is surprising as I did not take any of my usual sleep aids such as camomile and many others. Only some natural melatonin before bed in a tart cherry capsule. The effects of this are generally very mild or even unnoticeable. I just had an instinct that I wouldn’t need any of what I normally take and was right.

The other thing I am experiencing is harder to explain but quite profound and I think has to do with the racing heart, dry mouth etc. that were bothering me at the start. In brief I feel that I am becoming more in touch with my emotions. I have been in an extremely stressful situation in my life for sometime now and think that I had begun to mask the stress. The racing heart etc. was perhaps that being unmasked. It reached a peak about 5 days ago when I almost started weeping when a James Taylor song came on in my headphones at the gym. I managed to keep it together but it was super strange. I didn’t even cry at my mothers funeral so this was totally out of character for me but considering some things I am facing atm probably not unhealthy at all.

Being more in touch with my emotions has helped me face some things I have been avoiding and also made people close to me more sensitive and aware of my needs.

I believe the forgetfulness I was experiencing was also due to unmasked stress.

Emotional intelligence is something I have studied extensively and even write books about and so managing this change has been okay for me - but might be a challenge if a person didn’t know about what emotional responses like this mean or how to regulate them best.

For me this has become very exciting and given me a lot of hope for the future. Being on the autism spectrum, accessing my emotions has always been challenging for me. The new vulnerability I am feeling is different than the general anxiety I have become adapted to. It has its challenges but is also helping things move forward with some of the problems I have been facing in a way that is giving me hope.

I don’t want to expect too much from this but there is definitely a positive change happening in my life that I thought was worth sharing. Without this forum I probably never would have stuck the initial rough patch with Taurine through.

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#175

timing suggestions? divided dosage? combination with? I know people drinking several of red bull every day; they don’t seem to be younger than any other though

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#176

how do you take this in terms of timing and combination? I am taking rapa at night, I think it helped my sleep. Thinking of add AKG, spermidine.

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#177

A quick update on my Taurine journey. It seems I have stumbled on something remarkable with Taurine This mdpi paper says Taurine restores normal autophagy function and is recognised as an effective treatment for ASD.

… we hypothesize that oral taurine administration could restore levels of this amino acid to its basal state, thus restoring normal autophagy function. As taurine also promotes neurogenesis and synaptogenesis, it might improve cognitive function in severe cases by dampening the neurodegenerative process caused by apoptosis. All these neuro-protective effects lead us to propose taurine as an effective treatment for ASD. Neuroglia | Free Full-Text | On the Potential Therapeutic Roles of Taurine in Autism Spectrum Disorder

I am not sure if I want to laugh or cry. The article also says

The term autism was created in 1911 by the psychiatrist Paul Eugen Bleuler (1857–1939), who employed the Greek word “self” to reflect one’s desire to retire into one’s thoughts.

I only said to my husband tonight that I feel like I have been set free from being trapped in my mind. I am still a bit all over the place emotionally but still completely amazed to feel set free from the well worn ruts in my head.

Why have I only discovered this at 57? OMG.

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#178

@karismac If I take taurine I feel mentally unfocused, tired, some kind of brainfog. If I wake up in the night and take taurine, it makes me go back to sleep and get a calm, deep sleep. And contradictory to this, Taurine before exercise increases my maximal exercise performance, at least when it comes to running.

I have learned that we react very differently to Taurine. This creates a strong case for individualized dosing. Especially since Taurine acts on GABA receptors in the brain, and since our brain chemistry is different from person to person, one can expect that we face different mental effects from Taurine.

Please keep reporting.

Another potential effect from Taurine.

“As taurine acts as an agonist of GABA-A receptors, we aimed at investigating whether it might ameliorate AS symptoms. Since mice weaning, we orally administered 1 g/kg/day taurine in water to Ube3a-deficient mice. … taurine significantly improved motor and learning skills and restored the levels of the post-synaptic PSD-95 and pERK1/2-ERK1/2 ratio to wild type values.”

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#179

"I have learned that we react very differently to Taurine. This creates a strong case for individualized dosing"

I agree. I have used taurine in the past when I have had trouble sleeping through the night Four grams of taurine right before bedtime gave me a prolonged sleep period before waking up.

One or two grams might work just as well.

“Taurine 1000-2000mg daily before sleep. You can repeat the dose if you wake up at night to help you get back to sleep.”

Taurine definitely makes flies sleep longer.
“taurine also increases total sleep by 50%. Our results show that taurine increases sleep”

https://therestored.com/blogs/sleep/taurine-for-sleep#:~:text=Taking%20taurine%20at%20bedtime%20can,help%20you%20fall%20asleep%20naturally.

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#180

@Jonas, I take the daily supplements in the morning, and take my weekly rapa dose any time of the day or night.

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