Michael, last Sept I communicated directly with Iollo regarding how to interpret their taurine result as they are taking whole blood samples whereas the major taurine paper by Yadav shows results for serum. Literature indicates that whole blood taurine is a lot higher than plasma or serum, but response I got from Iollo indicated their assessment of my optimum taurine level was based on their internal data and that they published a paper (Jan 2023) showing good agreement with plasma on many constituents although the paper did not mention taurine, but Iollo also said in same email response their result is not directly comparable to plasma or serum levels (??). In my mind Iollo data interpretation against published data specific to serum or plasma is an open issue until they explicitly show the comparison for each marker. I'll be doing a separate plasma amino acid test when I do my last of 4 iollo tests to see how taurine compares to Yadav paper for humans and to Iollo result.
Thanks Peter. Assuming that's true for taurine, avoiding an age-related decline is a top priority. What's optimal beyond that is debatable, for all the reasons that you mentioned.
I’m a software engineer and have always learned skills that I apply and use to advance my day job by doing side projects. Following these videos you share have helped me ask new data questions at work and methodology questions, even though I work for a digital marketing company unrelated to nutrition or healthcare. Thanks for the insights.
The amount of time you spend keeping track of all YOUR data alone sounds over whelming. Kudos to you. I'm sure you will reap the benefits. Thanks for being the guinea pig.
Awesome, as usual! My Sunday morning study. One thought in analyzing for correlations. If a specific dietary component has been steady over the course of your taurine measurements, then it won't be able to show a correlation. I believe you have to have variation in the dietary component to establish a correlation with the variation in the taurine measurement. So, for example, if your sardines input, a major source of taurine, has been relatively constant over the course of your taurine tests then sardines won't show a correlation with your taurine level even though it could be the key driver to your taurine level. Thus, It seems possible that even with Coconut Butter and SCFAs showing a correlation, there are other stronger correlations and bigger drivers with dietary components that actually contain taurine.
Thanks @philmartz. I agree with your premise, but note that it's almost impossible for all aspects of the diet to be exactly the same from test-to-test, with some exceptions. For those foods that are essentially the same, you're right, but there is some variability in the data which should be picked up by correlations.
@@conqueragingordietrying123 Actually, there isn't enough variation in your sardine variability to pick up the correlation. To be more specific...your primary dietary source of taurine is sardines, and these have been very constant at about 103 grams/d for all six taurine tests. I tested your data and it won't be able to show a correlation with sardines even when sardines are your primary source of taurine. Additionally, I think if you did find the need at some point to raise taurine you would want to focus first on dietary sources of taurine, as well as the correlation with saturated fat (which has several known interactions with taurine).
Taurine supplementation could be good for improving homocysteine ("Effect of taurine supplementation on plasma homocysteine levels of the middle-aged Korean women").
@@conqueragingordietrying123 Excellent point! At 60 years old, my taurine should be on the low side. However, when I started supplementing taurine (3 g per day), I was quite dizzy. I stopped for a week, then tried just 1 g per day. I didn't feel dizzy but certainly felt different. A positive was that I didn't get stressed about anything. A negative was that I also lacked motivation - probably because I was just too chilled. It was like a sedative but without the lack of energy - I still had plenty of energy, just little motivation. I gave it a week to see if my body would adjust and it didn't so I just stopped taking it. Probably not a good idea to take it without first having a test. At my age, my level should be low but I'm not normal. I have several symptoms associated with Fibromyalgia. Though it's very mild and undiagnosed, people with associated symptoms usually have large variations from the norm of a number of amino acids, hormones and neurotransmitters. It could either be that my taurine level is already high or that it was causing an imbalance. Whatever it was, it clearly wasn't doing me any good.
@@conqueragingordietrying123 My ALT dropped from around 25-27 U/L to 23 U/L after I increased taurine from 3 g/day to 5-6 g taurine per day. I've been taking a medication that irritates the liver for over a year, otherwise my ALT scores would probably be in the low teens. I also supplement with 2.4 g of NAC every day, among other things, but only taurine changed recently. I'm testing monthly.
I also noticed that my nightly trips to the bathroom when down to one from 2-3 after starting Taurine. Apparently the produces a chemical that limits the need to urinate while sleeping, but as we age the body ability to produce this chemical is reduced. It seems like taurine restored it for me.
Interesting stuff, supplementing Taurine can push up triglycerides, though mine is fine. Funnily enough all my saturated fat comes from coconut oil too.
Were the sardines packed in water or oil? If saturated fats are correlated with higher taurine levels, perhaps sardines in olive or vegetable oil could be the cause rather than the sardines themselves. Alternatively, canned sardines have to be pressure canned at a high temperature, perhaps the high temperature has oxidized some of the UFAs and this is causing the issue.
Because of its significant palmitic acid content, cocoa butter will raise LDL-cholesterol concentrations more than do most liquid vegetable oils. I would avoid.
The purpose of the video is not to encourage others to increase SFAs, but instead, to regularly test their own biomarkers, and to follow correlations with diet (and supplements) as a means for maintaining a youthful biochemical state. That recipe is likely different between people, it doesn't have to be my way.
He said coconut butter, not cocoa. Coconut tends to have less than 10% palmitic acid. He also said he was trying to push his LDL "just a bit higher" in a previous video to test a correlation.
@@OneDougUnderPar I misspelled. I meant coconut. Coconut oil is 92% saturated fat and thus raises cholesterol levels similar to animal fats such as butter and lard.
Mike -- Over at the Taurine and hypotaurine metabolism pathway on KEGG, L-Cysteine is 2 or 3 steps away from taurine. This seems like a very reasonable candidate if you want to increase taurine. I'm not sure if you track the individual aminos but there is some data on cronometer. My evaluation was that it was fairly easy to cover most of the aminos with reasonable choices, but cysteine and glycine could easily be low as there are few sources.
Thanks @adalllah, I did. It might tie in with my data for a worse DunedinPACE with 600 mg nicotinic acid/d, but also, poor kidney function was a part of that paper's story, which is currently youthful in my case.
Thanks Michael for another great topic. Taurine seems influencing on all levels of human diseases found high in dried sea weed, clams, mussels 600+mg of 100g when compared to egg, milk 3mg other than meat, poultry. May be safe than SFAs. Thanks.
Thanks @barasra8847. I don't know if the SFAs are causative in terms of taurine, but there are other ways to potentially increase plasma levels, as you mentioned, which is good news.
Anyway, too much taurine-conjugated bile is bad - the gut bacteria could produce excessive amounts of H2S out of that (known carcinogen and overall destroyer of intestines if higher than normally required for signaling) - usually happens with high-fat diets which ask for high amounts of bile (while fiber is low which could excrete the excess).
I have always remained suspicious about taurine supplementation myself. Since it is quite a strong antioxidant, I believe it messes up the endogenous antioxidant system and makes the redox system sleepy. I am sure we need more indirect ways to upregulate it indeed. It is quite likely the body decreases its endogenous synthesis and its pathways if we supplement it, alongside imbalancing the other antioxidant systems. But this far it is only my gut feeling, needs to be looked into more deeply. Could make sense to add it in some stressful periods only as we do with vitamin C or other antioxidants.
Sleepy redox systems are not a problem at all if they wake up the same way they went to sleep. Taurine has a lot more ways to impact you than just spare your enzymes that make glutathione.
@@Ardentic-better-eat-meat Lack of taurine in the diet did not put those systems to sleep, so the taurine is not a solution to "waking up the same way".
I have no clue anymore what to think about LDL and saturated fats. The official advice is to avoid saturated fats and to minimise LDL!... What's your opinion?
I let biomarkers do the talking, and LDL within the 65-120 range is associated with lowest risk for CHD mortality. I'm not talking about going higher (or lower than that)...
Avoid seed oils is my advice (rape, canola, sunflower, - all of them) - saturated fats take them a couple of times a week - when you fancy them - in say cheese or corned beef. Works for me anyways. (I am 74)
@@BR-hi6yt Rape is as healthy as olive, sometimes even better, if clean and organic. EVen rapeseed margarines have shown good results in the past studies. Please link the studies showing rapeseed is bad :) we seriously need to show these. Other than that, refined oils are to be avoided indeed, in most part, but if ever using some oil, rapeseed oil belongs to one of the best choices - it even has the phytonutrients similar to cabbage (precursors to sulforaphane - wild deers get dizzy with this if they munch on rape btw), its from cabbage family. Sunflower, when refined (loses the important vitamins, B vitamins etc, metals) loses a lot of value indeed, and high in omega-6. In seed form, some is nice for folate etc.
@@conqueragingordietrying123 most are are talking about the popular new anti-seed oil sentiment. It's however not an answer on what I said. There seem to be 2 completely opposite opinions in science of which the carnivore doctors say, higher LDL is better, the mainstream consensus is exactly the opposite. What is true?!
Hi Michael - great update and i started on taurine about month ago. Too checking if you are investigating use of Generative AI to analyze all your blood testing, other body parameters and life style factors like diet and supplements. There are a few maybe with some analysis like self decode and inside tracker. But think these are using simple methods for analysis. Nothing like what i have been reading about for GAI and all advanced capabilities for many different things like complicated protein folding. Labcorp and quest are very primitive where just look at range for one measured blood factor at a time. Great if could have GAI to review everything - blood, diet, exercise protocol, drugs, supplements, fat mass, etc. and then provide what to change/add etc. Maybe a few more yrs with something like this. Thanks any ideas here.
Hi @michael-qp9xd, and thanks. I agree about AI, and afaik, none of those companies are using it with integrated diet data. Building that app is on my to-do list...
Remember what happened to Benjamin Button? He reverted back to being an infant. Could he have been taking Taurine supplements with the goal of achieving 200MM taurine plasma levels? They did not cover this topic in the movie, so we will never know. Nonetheless, the Benjamin Button movie may provide a cautionary tale in terms of taking things too far in the quest for youthfulness.
Increase in sat fat may increase LDL and taurine but will it increase your heart risk? Hahaha, i dont think. I believe your bio age will improve, that is my guest. Recently i saw a video on Reversing aging revolution using plasma exchange which saved few years on longetivity. Getting younger plasma maybe another stategy to reboot your system from a lower base. The company is based in the US and it could be to improve your score on the Longetivity Olympic.
LDL in the 65-120 range is associated with lowest CHD mortality risk-I'm not aiming for higher than that I'm also aiming for younger plasma, but not through plasma exchange, but instead figuring out what food + supplement combination makes a multitude of biomarkers youthful
It surely brings it to bile - high sat fat diets are known to destroy gut health via taurine conjugated bile which turns into H2S by bacteria in the gut (I bet, when used chronically, so the bacteria get adapted, and more so with high sulfur-proteins in diet - otherwise there is more glycine-conjugated bile acids).
I bet the blood levels must be higher. Can't be lower. While the bile-digested food is absorbed and even before that the bile is deconjugated by bacteria and lots of it re-absorbed, lots of it returns (often a problem - diets high in protein and fat and low in fiber return more bile and taurine or at least then the excreted amount is less ideally regulated - paradoxically enough, menu high in proteins makes body more depleted in taurine - I have forgot the mechanism by which it happens).
I tried taking taurine because Im on a vegan diet and thought it would correlate with taurine blood levels. I did not tested thoose levels because I havn't got the money to do regulary testings. Taurine is one of the few supplements I do feel a slight difference. Seems like my sport performance is a bit better with T. But before I'll add taurine on a regular basis, I'll do some blood tests.
Interesting point on saturated fat, I dont respond to supplemental Taurine well and my Biomesight test tells me to avoid it. Do you know why sat fat would increase Taurine? I have high endogenous Taurine production genetically so I dont really need to supplement.
Michael, do you think it is OK to take Taurine with food? or would amino acids compete for absorption and negate the result? Always confused oil this topic... Thank you:-)
@@conqueragingordietrying123 Thnx Michael, but my Q is not about increasing Taurine… I think you were replying to smb else here;) Would be great if you could answer my Q above as well… Thnx 🤗
@@conqueragingordietrying123 As you know, the other difference is your diet contains many more servings of vegetables and fruit, a much higher intake of fiber, and no use of olive oil. The other aspects are very similar. I think your diet has a better scientific basis.
Aged related taurine decline could be related to age-related testosterone decline, because test enhances taurine synthesis by upregulating androgen and cysteine sulfinic acid decarboxylase expression.
May i suggest you go higher on specifically MCTs as a way to increase you SFA intake? Although they are only present 15% in coconut butter, they might be contributing the most towards that association of higher taurine levels. If they aren't, try the reverse, by adding lauric acid only instead. What do you think?
My diet doesn't currently include supplemental MCTs, so the SFA correlation is mostly driven by coconut butter SFAs (C8, C10, C12), which have some overlap with MCTs (C8) I generally avoid supplements as much as possible, and the plasma taurine data is relatively youthful, which argues against supplemental MCTs, at least for now
@conqueragingordietrying1797 i know, that's partially my point. You are already supplementing it, as food. That's why I said go higher, as in swap around some ratios. On second thought, c8 is readily purchasable as a standalone acid, and would maybe stand out more than mcts. Just swap out some coconut for c8, if you think you would be able to gain some more insight. My speculation could be that ketones somehow might make some taurine superfluous, leaving more available. Maybe... I'm open for feedback
