#21

Wow, somebody’s a little defensive. The point he was making is that increasing muscle protein synthesis via anabolic pathways (via a “supplement”, however one defines it, or otherwise) would increase healthspan but not necessarily life span. Chronically stimulating anabolic pathways (which almost always involve mtor) could in fact be counter-productive for life span, although it’s complicated (tissue/organ specificity, how one defines chronic, etc etc).

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#23

Perhaps a better example would have been supplemental leucine. Or maybe HMB and/or isoleucine. Generally anabolic in muscle but not so much life span-extending (and maybe even counter-productive for life span?).

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#24

Taurine causes a ridiculous amount of gas for me. Like absurd amounts such that I choose not to take it. FWIW

#25

Sorry about that……………………

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#26

If your gut microbiome is freaking out when it gets taurine, maybe it’s an indication that your diet is deficient in taurine. If that’s the case, then you really should take taurine as taurine deficiency has been shown to be detrimental.
Obviously it’s pure speculation on my part here but you should probably look into it.

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#27

So he should get a blood test? Is it that simple?

#28

I take 3 grams a day, mainly to help me sleep as it has calming effect because of the Gaba and Glutinane. I take it with a some other low risk things and it has really improved my perceived quality of sleep.

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#29

It seems likely that optimal doses of taurine when considered as a geroprotective will vary widely and might demonstrate a non-linear, perhaps sinusoidal dose-response curve due to several interconnected mechanisms. The saturation of taurine transporters limits tissue uptake at higher doses, while feedback regulation may reduce transporter expression and increase renal clearance. Excess taurine could also disrupt sulfur amino acid metabolism, dampen ROS-driven mitohormesis, and unbalance key signaling pathways like mTOR, AMPK, and autophagy, leading to diminishing or adverse effects. (Note here if taking in proximity to GlyNAC or some other geroprotectives.) Hormetic dynamics may further contribute, with moderate doses optimizing stress responses and mitochondrial function, whereas higher doses might suppress adaptive mechanisms. Tissue-specific capacities, neurological modulation, and immune system effects also suggest dose-dependent variability in benefits. I have settled on two doses of 2,000 mg each – early AM and 30 minutes before dinner – both taken with piperine. I have little rational basis for choosing this dose other than the fact that I was experiencing a mild GI disturbance at six grams and nothing at four.

Theoretically, the following lab tests could serve as markets of taurine’s effectiveness as a geroprotective and, within limits, aid in fine tuning the dose.

Fasting Glucose and Insulin
HOMA-IR
Lactate and Pyruvate
Oxidized LDL
Malondialdehyde (MDA) or 8-OHdG
Total Antioxidant Capacity
CRP
Neutrophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratio
Cytokine Panels (IL-6, IL-10)
Blood Pressure
Renal Function Tests (creatinine, BUN, and eGFR)
Sodium and potassium
Plasma or Urine Taurine Levels
Homocysteine
Cortisol and DHEA-S
Creatine Kinase
Lactate Dehydrogenase
Telomere Length
Autophagy Markers (LC3-II or p62)

This is far too large a list for most of us to run and likely not to be determinative in any event, even before considering the significant possibility of confounding with many other independent variables. Does anyone have any suggestions for a heuristic lab test strategy? My next comprehensive panel is due in about six months. I’ll try to assess the impact of tauring as best I can since it will be my first comp panel since increasing my dose above 1,000 mg.

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#30

An excellent post, Rob Tuck, you raise great points.

I don’t have answers to your questions, but I do have a strategy😅. Looking at the literature, taking 1.6g/day taurine lowers BP. There is some indication that as taurine levels drop with age, supplementing has beneficial health effects in animal models. My idea is that I can’t know the exact effects of taurine at any given dosage, so picking any single dosage consistently per day, means that if I pick wrong, or take wrong, I have 100% of the time wrong effects. I therefore decided, that if I take a mixture of doses and different timings, I increase my chance of hitting the right dose, but it also means that I might obtain less benefits than if I took one dose consistently and happened to get lucky with the right one. But smaller effect is better than no effect. It’s the bird in hand better than two in the bush.

I take 3-4g/day on an empty stomach. I say 3-4g, because it’s 3g 5 days a week, and 4g two days a week. I split the dose 2.5g morning on an empty stomach (in a drink), then for 5 days I take 500mg with dinner for a total of 3g/day. On two days (Mon, Thurs), I take the 2.5g in the morning drink on an empty stomach, 500g with my middday meal, and 1g before bed on an empty stomach for a 4g total for each of those two days - those two days are also my two heavy exercise days (weights and cardio), and the two days when I consume only a single 500 calorie meal; on those two days I also take 250mcg amino chelated molybdenum.

I can’t say I have observed any concrete effects from taurine, though it may have slightly lowered my BP. YMMV.

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#31

Any data to support that claim?

I am taking Taurine with GlyNaC for some time now and I talked to Nick (Physionic) about it and he doesnt see problem in mixing it together.

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#32

Thanks @CronosTempi. Your approach is about the same as mine except that my day-to-day variations trace more to the fact that I find it difficult to execute what has become a complex supplement schedule and, as a result, I sometimes skip a dose or compress two doses into a smaller interval. I haven’t given the variation much thought except that I it might be positive. I’m taking taurine with piperine now because of the recent suggestions that it increases assimilation and confers some benefits in itself.

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#33

No empirical data that I am aware of @Sasa_Loncar. These conjectures (not claims) are based solely on biochemical mechanisms and processes. I take GlyNAC and taurine and typically separate them by an hour or two but have occasionally taken them close to the same time. I have not noticed any effects.

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#34

N of 1 but i doubled my taurine and tmg between my last blood test and dropped my homocysteine levels a ton from 13.x to 9.x

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#35

I hope I get the same result @Josh. Mine has been stubborn in the 11-16 range. I’ve had only one 9.0 reading in the past five years.

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#36

Taurine affects many organs and cells throughout the body. This includes the kidney. Here is a nice review of the mechanism of action of taurine in the kidney. Taurine, broadly speaking, is kidney protective. There are many reasons I take taurine (3-4g/day), but one of them is that I also take empagliflozin, and I feel that taurine has great complementary potential with SGLT2i.

Taurine and the renal system

This is one of the reasons why I take taurine in connection with empagliflozin (the other is the effect on osmolality in cells throughout the body).

The passage from the study I’d like to highlight:

“Also, because taurine is known to enhance insulin secretion [12], it may indirectly enhance glucose entry into cells. Hence, taurine may influence the intracellular as well as the transcellular movement of glucose.”

One of the concerns I had with empagliflozin - and this would apply to all SGLT2i - is what happens with glucose handling in exercise. When exercising acutely, I experience transient hyperglycemia - I have verified this multiple times with a blood monitor (fingerprick). The elevated glucose levels are presumably the result of the body trying to quickly generate/liberate glucose so that it can be taken up downstream by the muscles which have just been depleted because of exercise. My concern was, that if empagliflozin rapidly sequesters the extra glucose from the blood, it may - perhaps, pure speculation - lock up the glucose in the renal system before the muscles can fully uptake the glucose downstream.

This is where taurine enters. If taurine slightly elevates insulin and makes it easier for the muscle cells to recover energy sources, then that is very helpful in allowing the muscles to fill up on energy before the excess glucose is dumped into the kidneys.

I freely admit, this is pure 100% mechanistic speculation, and the validity of this is impossible for me to ascertain, but in any case, this is another situation where taurine might be highly synergistic with an SGLT2i in the context of exercise and muscle recovery. Of course, this is - again - speculation.

What is not speculation is the protective effect taurine has on kidneys, as this review illustrates. And this is somewhat comforting to me, as empagliflozin (and all SGLT2i) work in the kidneys, so some extra protection is nice to have. YMMV.

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#37

Look into “reactive hyperglycemia”. It is common for people to have this issue. I have had it. If you eat a high glycemic food within 1-2 hours of exercise your insulin will rise, and then when you start exercising your muscles will pull glucose from the blood. At that time both the insulin and the muscle activity are pulling glucose from the blood which can lead to low blood sugar. The liver reacts too slowly (release more glucose) for some people to offset this. My solution when I experienced this was to not eat carbs until after I started my warmup.

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#38

Joseph, are you sure you’re describing what is happening here? From your description it sounds like reactive hypoglycemia. The insulin and muscle draw down blood glucose and the liver is too slow in compensating, leading to too low BG (hypo). I have the opposite problem. My BG goes too high, presumably because my liver dumps too much glucose into the blood and my muscles don’t keep up with pulling it out.

Regarding eating carbs before exercise etc., it makes no difference, at least in my case. How do I know that? Because I get hyperglycemia with exercise regardless of any food intake. Here is a stark illustration: I do my weight lifting (I do a form of circuit training) after my overnight fast, in the early afternoon (I skip breakfast), so after 18-20 hours of fasting. So on an empty stomach - 20 hours empty! Yet sure as clockwork, when I measure my BG immediately after exercise, I get numbers like 114-118. Before exercise, 88-95. I’ve measured that many times. After exercise, I shower and eat my first meal of the day (which is not carb heavy - it’s my big protein meal), so some 20-30 minutes after exercise - at that point my BG already starts going back to normal. I never experience low blood sugar (hypoglycemia). Some 3-4 hours after that meal (my BG is again normal 88-95) so late afternoon (around 5-6 pm), I then do my cardio, jogging some 50 minutes. And… boom, hyperglycemia again, 114-118. I have also mixed it up, with first cardio jogging 50 minutes on an empty stomach after 18-20 hour fast, and after exercise, hyperglycemia 114-118. Then meal, 3-4 hours later my BG is normal again and I do my circuit weight training, and immediately after, BG 114-118.

Bottom line I have a crazy overactive liver overproducing glucose (gluconeogenesis) in response to exercise. When I read about how you should exercise to bring down your blood sugar, or how you can even get low BG after exercise, I laugh loudly. This is absolutely not my experience, in fact it’s the exact opposite, and those experts can take their recommendations and shove ‘em. My liver overproduces glucose, period. My morning glucose runs 108-115, then goes down to normal 88-95 about an hour later - and from that normal when I exercise (on an empty stomach), boom back to hyperglycemia. I’ve battled my liver glucose overproduction for years, failing completely. I tell you how insane it is. In 2018, I went on an 8 day water only fast, while maintaining my exercise regimen (Peter Attia style - his example gave me the idea to also exercise while on an extended water only fast). Guess what, my BG was high in the morning, and never got below my usual levels. Just insane. My liver is bonkers. As a result, I have been prediabetic the past 10 years A1c 5.7-5.9. Oh, and my insulin is also on the high side, so my HOMA-IR is trash - I’m mildly insulin resistant.

So, since December I’ve been taking 12.5mg/day of empagliflozin. I have the distinct pleasure of reading my morning glucose never above 100, usually in the low 90’s! It’s only been some 6 weeks, so it’s too early to measure A1c, but I intend to do so early April (because I also initiated rapamycin on Jan 4, 2025).

I am the poster example of someone who needs drugs to achieve BG control. Nothing else has worked for me.

And that’s how I ended up on a SGLT2i, and with taurine as an adjunct, which I’ve been reading up on. To bring it back to the original topic, I feel taurine is very beneficial (it may have also mildly lowered my blood pressure). Obviously I can’t say it’s life extending, like in mice, but I think it’s beneficial and health protective in many ways. YMMV.

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#39

Same story for me. I eat full plant based. One hour after meal BS is 110, two hours below 100, four hours around 90. I go to sleep, I wake up and my sugar is 125 and its going down for hours. Takes me 6 hours after waking up to get it below 100. I am frustrated to no end and I am tempted to start with Emp 12.5mg to counter this liver overshoot.

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#40

Sorry I misunderstood. High blood sugar after exercise is common. The liver doesn’t want the brain to run short while the muscles are sucking up the glucose. Maybe your liver makes too much. My blood sugar increases when I’m about to start exercising…adrenaline / cortisol I guess.

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#41

Based on my experience, if I were you, I’d go for it. Obviously check out your situation carefully to see if there are any counterinducations, and be cautious not to stack the empa on top of some other BG lowering drug.

Be aware that the dosage of empa in the US (Jardiance) is 10mg, and 25mg. I do 12.5mg/day because I import the empa from an Indian pharmacy in a 25mg tablet, which I then split in two… it might be slightly inaccurate, and I might end up with 12mg and 13mg on occasion or thereabouts, but it’s roughly that. Incidentally, I specify the empagliflozin I want as the one from the original manufacturer… one time I forgot to specify that and got some funky looking generic which I immediately threw out. Of course, if you get a scrip from a doc here, you’re fine.

Anyhow, like I said, I’ve been taking empa 12.5/day since December 1 daily, and so far, so good, no side effects whatsoever that I can see, and my morning BG is never above 100, usually 90-95. I’ve had a few 88, and exactly two readings of 99. Too early to tell if it’ll affect my A1c, though the literature suggests it’s unlikely, as my A1c is below 6 - the SGLT2i lowers A1c only mildly and from a higher level, like 7+, but who knows, everyone is different.

The other thing I’ve read is that people can lose weight on an SGLT2i, because of the glucose dumping (up to 90g of glucose in urine a day!). However - and this is important - this effect is often only present in the first few months of using the drug. The reason is that people compensate for the glucose loss by eating more! Crazy. I’m making sure to keep my caloric intake steady. I don’t want to piss away the benefits of empa (my apologies for the cheap play on words :nerd_face:). YMMV, but best of luck!

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