Taurine is one of those compounds that gets mentioned constantly in fitness circles and energy drink marketing, yet most people have no idea what it actually does. The reality is more interesting than the hype suggests.

Taurine is the most abundant sulphur-containing amino acid in mammalian tissues. You’ll find it concentrated in the brain, retina, heart muscle, and immune cells. Unlike most amino acids, taurine doesn’t get incorporated into proteins. Instead, it floats around freely doing other jobs: regulating cell volume, stabilising cell membranes, modulating calcium signalling, and forming bile salts that help digest fats [1].

Your body produces some taurine from cysteine and methionine, but the amounts are limited. Most of what you have comes from food. Meat, fish, and shellfish are excellent sources. Dairy contains some. Plant foods have almost none, which is why vegans typically have lower taurine levels than omnivores.

Under certain conditions, your body’s taurine needs outpace its production capacity. Premature infants, people with chronic liver disease, and those with heart or kidney failure may benefit from additional taurine. Energy drinks contain it (typically 1,000mg per can), though the evidence for its effects when combined with caffeine and sugar is mixed at best.

What taurine does in the body

Before diving into the clinical research, it helps to understand taurine’s basic functions. It acts as an antioxidant, though a weak one compared to glutathione or vitamin C. It helps regulate osmotic pressure in cells, keeping them from swelling or shrinking inappropriately. It modulates neurotransmitter activity in the brain, generally having a calming effect. And it’s essential for bile acid conjugation, which matters for fat digestion and cholesterol metabolism.

These aren’t dramatic effects. Taurine is more like a maintenance worker than a star performer. But when levels drop too low, things start going wrong.

Benefits with reasonable evidence

1. Heart failure support

Heart failure affects roughly 64 million people worldwide. The condition develops when the heart muscle weakens or stiffens, preventing it from pumping blood efficiently. Standard treatments include ACE inhibitors, beta-blockers, and diuretics, but many patients remain symptomatic despite medication.

Interestingly, people with heart failure tend to have depleted taurine levels in their heart tissue. The question is whether replacing that taurine helps.

A double-blind trial of 16 patients with heart failure from coronary artery disease found that taurine supplementation (500mg three times daily for 12 weeks) improved several measures: exercise capacity increased, ECG abnormalities decreased, and patients reported feeling better [2]. That’s a tiny trial, but the results were consistent.

A larger randomised controlled trial in patients with heart failure found that taurine supplementation (500mg three times daily for 2 weeks) reduced inflammatory markers including C-reactive protein and had favourable effects on platelet function [3]. The anti-atherogenic effects are plausible given taurine’s known biology.

My honest take: the evidence is genuinely promising, but these are small, short trials. I’d want to see larger studies before making strong claims. If you have heart failure, this is worth discussing with your cardiologist rather than trying on your own.

The liver is where taurine really earns its keep. Taurine is critical for bile acid conjugation, and the liver contains high concentrations of it. When the liver is damaged, taurine levels drop, and restoring them might help recovery.

A controlled trial studied 24 patients with hepatitis C who received either taurine (3g daily) or placebo for 4 months. The taurine group showed improvements in liver enzyme markers (ALT and AST both decreased), oxidative stress markers dropped, and blood lipid profiles improved [4]. The magnitude of change was meaningful, not dramatic.

Another trial examined 30 patients with liver damage from chronic alcohol use. After 3 months of taurine supplementation, liver enzymes improved, triglycerides and cholesterol decreased, and notably, the enzymes that metabolise alcohol (alcohol dehydrogenase and aldehyde dehydrogenase) showed favourable changes [5].

The alcohol study is particularly interesting because it suggests taurine might help the liver handle alcohol more efficiently. That doesn’t mean you should drink more, obviously. But for people recovering from alcohol-related liver damage, taurine supplementation seems reasonable to consider.

This benefit is why I find taurine more compelling than many other supplements. The liver evidence is mechanistically sound and the clinical data, while limited, consistently points in the same direction.

3. Blood lipid improvement

Dyslipidaemia affects a large proportion of adults and directly contributes to cardiovascular disease. The question of whether taurine can meaningfully improve blood lipid levels has received some attention.

A randomised, double-blind trial enrolled 30 overweight and obese university students. Those receiving taurine (3g daily for 7 weeks) showed reductions in triacylglycerol levels and improvements in the total cholesterol to HDL ratio (a marker of cardiovascular risk). As a bonus, they also lost a bit of weight [6].

The mechanism makes sense: taurine activates cholesterol 7α-hydroxylase (the rate-limiting enzyme for cholesterol conversion to bile acids), modulates LDL receptor activity, and promotes apolipoprotein A1 production (the main protein component of HDL).

I wouldn’t recommend taurine as a primary treatment for high cholesterol. Statins and lifestyle changes have far stronger evidence. But as an adjunct, particularly for people already doing everything else right, it might provide modest additional benefit. Similar effects have been observed with fish oil and CoQ10.

4. Stroke risk (limited but interesting data)

Stroke remains a leading cause of death and disability. Any intervention that might reduce risk deserves attention, though the bar for evidence should be high.

A large prospective study followed 14,274 women and examined whether blood taurine concentrations predicted stroke risk. The overall results showed no clear protective association [7].

However, when the researchers looked specifically at non-smokers, an inverse relationship emerged: higher taurine levels correlated with lower stroke incidence. The authors speculated that smoking might somehow interfere with taurine’s protective effects, or that the relationship only becomes apparent when oxidative stress from smoking isn’t masking everything else.

I wouldn’t take taurine specifically to prevent stroke based on this evidence. The data is observational, the effect was only seen in a subgroup, and we don’t know if supplementation would reproduce the association seen with naturally higher blood levels. But it’s an intriguing finding that warrants further research.

5. Chemotherapy side effect reduction

Cancer chemotherapy is brutal but often necessary. Anything that reduces side effects without compromising treatment efficacy would be valuable.

A randomised, double-blind trial enrolled 40 patients with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia undergoing chemotherapy. Half received taurine supplementation (2g daily), half received placebo. After 6 months, the taurine group reported significantly less fatigue and fewer problems with nausea, vomiting, and taste disturbances [8].

The mechanisms likely involve multiple pathways: taurine can modulate neurotransmitter signalling (potentially reducing nausea), alter muscle metabolism (potentially reducing fatigue), and dampen pro-inflammatory cytokine release (a major driver of chemotherapy malaise).

This is genuinely exciting, though the evidence remains preliminary. If you’re undergoing chemotherapy, discuss taurine with your oncologist before taking it. Some chemotherapy regimens have complex drug interactions that need to be considered.

Side effects and safety

Taurine has an excellent safety profile at typical supplemental doses (1-3g daily). Most clinical trials report no significant adverse effects compared to placebo.

At very high doses (above 3g daily), some people experience:

Gastrointestinal discomfort
Nausea
Diarrhoea
Headache

These effects are uncommon and generally mild. The European Food Safety Authority has concluded that taurine intakes up to 6g daily are safe for most adults.

Who should avoid taurine

Pregnant and breastfeeding women: The safety of taurine supplementation during pregnancy and lactation hasn’t been established. Your body does need taurine during pregnancy (it’s critical for foetal brain development), but getting it from food rather than supplements is the cautious approach.

People with kidney disease: Taurine is primarily excreted by the kidneys. If kidney function is impaired, taurine could potentially accumulate. Discuss with your nephrologist before supplementing.

People with liver cirrhosis: While taurine may help with earlier-stage liver damage, advanced cirrhosis impairs the liver’s ability to metabolise amino acids. Supplementation in this context requires medical supervision.

People with bipolar disorder: There are case reports of manic episodes following consumption of large amounts of energy drinks containing taurine, caffeine, and other stimulants [9]. Whether taurine specifically was responsible isn’t clear, but caution seems warranted.

Anyone taking anticoagulants or antiplatelet drugs: Taurine has mild effects on platelet function. While this probably isn’t clinically significant, people on aspirin or prescription blood thinners should mention taurine use to their doctor.

How much to take

Most clinical trials used doses of 1-3g daily, typically divided into two or three doses. The energy drink dose (around 1g) is probably too low to achieve therapeutic effects for most conditions.

Taurine is water-soluble, so it doesn’t require fat for absorption. Taking it with or without food doesn’t matter much.

The bottom line

Taurine isn’t a miracle supplement, but it’s more interesting than most. The evidence for heart failure support, liver protection, and lipid improvement is genuinely promising, even if not definitive. The safety profile is excellent, side effects are rare, and the cost is low.

For most healthy people eating a normal diet, taurine supplementation probably isn’t necessary. But for those with heart failure, liver disease, or undergoing chemotherapy, it’s worth discussing with a healthcare provider. And for vegans or anyone with particularly low dietary intake of animal products, supplementation makes theoretical sense even if we don’t have direct trial evidence in that population.

References

Ripps H, Shen W. Review: taurine: a “very essential” amino acid. Mol Vis. 2012;18:2673-86. PMID: 23170060
Ahmadian M, Dabidi Roshan V, Ashourpore E. Taurine supplementation improves functional capacity, myocardial oxygen consumption, and electrical activity in heart failure. J Diet Suppl. 2017;14(4):422-432. PMID: 28118062
Ahmadian M, et al. The effect of taurine supplementation on markers of atherosclerosis and inflammation in heart failure patients: a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. J Cardiovasc Nurs. 2017;32(3):298-305. PMID: 28580833
Hu YH, et al. Effect of taurine in chronic liver disease: analysis of blood lipid and liver function. Clin Exp Med. 2008;8(1):47-51. PMID: 17690950
Maruyama T, et al. Effects of taurine supplementation in chronic alcoholic liver disease. Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2014;38(9):2329-36. PMID: 24841875
Zhang M, et al. Beneficial effects of taurine on serum lipids in overweight or obese non-diabetic subjects. Amino Acids. 2004;26(3):267-71. PMID: 15221507
Bønaa KH, et al. Plasma taurine and stroke incidence in women: the EPIC-Norfolk study. Am J Clin Nutr. 2016;103(2):510-7. PMID: 26791186
Islambulchilar M, et al. Taurine attenuates chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting in acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Amino Acids. 2015;47(1):101-9. PMID: 26148612
Machado-Vieira R, et al. Mania associated with an energy drink: the possible role of taurine, caffeine, and inositol. Can J Psychiatry. 2001;46(5):454-5. PMID: 11441792