The structure of the experiment:
- Participant: a vegetarian man in his fifties.
- Supplement: 3 grams of oral taurine daily for 9 months.
- Diet and lifestyle: Maintaining consistency as much as possible throughout the experiment.
- Measures: Phenotypic age (biological age assessment), various blood markers.
Results:
| Albumin (g/dL) | 4.1 | 4.3 | 3.6-5.1 | Increase - normal |
| Creatinine (mg/dL) | 0.72 | 0.65 | 0.70-1.30 | decrease - typical for vegetarians |
| fasting glucose (mg/dL) | 93 | 90 | 65-99 | decrease - normal |
| C-reactive protein (mg/L) | 0.30 | 0.34 | < 1.00 considered low risk | stable - normal |
| alkaline phosphatase (ALP) (U/L) | 53 | 50 | 35-144 | decrease - normal |
| percentage of lymphocytes (%) | 33.1 | 40.7 | 20-40 | increase |
| mean cell volume (MCV) (fL) | 87.8 | 88.6 | 80.0-100.0 | increase - Normal |
| Red blood cell distribution width (RDW) (%) | 13.3 | 13.5 | 11.0-15.0 | Stable - normal |
| White blood cell count (WBC) (Thousand/uL) | 4.8 | 3.9 | 3.8-10.8 | decrease - slight |
| Taurine (umol/L) | 43.6 | 114.9 | 29.2-132.3 | Significant increase - as expected |
| Oxidized LDL (ng/mL) | 105 | 82 | 10-170 | decrease - positive |
| LDL and HDL cholesterol levels | - | - | - | no significant change |
Interesting observations:
According to the data, the taurine supplement was able to successfully raise the low taurine levels in the blood to a high level as expected, and modestly reduced the phenotypic age.
The most interesting change observed in the biological markers that make up the phenotypic age index was the increase in the percentage of lymphocytes.
This change was entirely due to the decrease in absolute neutrophil count from 2832 to 1981 cells/uL,
while absolute counts of other white blood cell types remained almost unchanged.
Neutrophil counts can rise temporarily due to transient infection or inflammation,
but according to the trial participant, a level of ~2800 was a relatively constant level for absolute neutrophil counts for several years prior to this self-experiment.
Therefore, the observed decrease is a new and unexpected change, and is most likely due to the taurine supplement.
Limitations and future developments:
This self-experiment represents only one data point, so it should be treated as anecdotal evidence. Larger clinical trials, with hundreds of participants, are needed to confirm these findings.
- Challenges for large-scale experiments:
- Costs: Clinical trials are expensive, and taurine supplementation is cheap and readily available, making it less commercially attractive for pharmaceutical companies.
- Funding: There is a lack of dedicated funding for the research of established and old dietary supplements.
Although the observed effects are modest, the safety and feasibility of taurine supplementation warrants further research.
Recommended future directions:
- Larger clinical trials to evaluate the effects of taurine on phenotypic age and other health markers.
- A deeper study of taurine's mechanisms of action, focusing on its effects on the immune system, oxidative stress and aging.
- Examining the effects of taurine in diverse populations, including different age groups and people with different health conditions.
This self-experiment offers preliminary evidence that taurine supplementation may positively affect certain phenotypic age and health markers.
Further studies are needed to confirm these findings and investigate the potential effects of taurine on human health.
