Transcription
When dealing with longevity, we have two goals. One is increasing maximum lifespan, meaning what's the maximum potential you can reach. Most people today have a maximum lifespan around the age of 90, but we want more. The second goal of longevity is reducing the risk of premature death. On our way to our maximum lifespan, many bad things could happen. Even the fact that the average lifespan of human beings is about 80 doesn't guarantee that all of us are going to reach that point; many can die at age 65, 70, or 75. We want to minimize this risk.
Now, in this video, we're going to focus on the second goal of longevity: reducing the risk of mortality. Now, what's a common condition that affects one in six people and dramatically increases the chance of death? Diabetes. Diabetes, besides being a disease of sugar regulation, is also a model of accelerated aging. People with diabetes have accelerated wrinkles, older-looking skin, loss of eyesight, muscle mass loss, cancer, and cardiovascular disease—all associated with aging. This is relevant because if taurine can reduce the chance of death, it may even affect the aging rate associated with diabetes. Another goal of this study is to see if we can reinforce the findings of the 2023 study in mice, where taurine increased the lifespan of mice by 12%.
Now, let's go to the study. In this fascinating study, the researchers took 70 rats and gave them diabetes during childhood. Then they tracked the rats throughout their entire life. It's a very rare lifespan study. Here in this table, you can see that it started with 70 rats. These 70 rats were given diabetes at the age of 9 weeks; this is equivalent to about age 5 in humans. Then the researchers divided the rats into three groups: a control group without taurine, a group with high-dose taurine (the exact dose will be discussed later), and another third group that was given vitamin E and selenium. This later group is going to give us another amazing insight about the impact of vitamin E and antioxidants on aging.
Now, what did they find in the study? There are four key insights we can draw from this study. So, this is the graph we are looking at. Here is the mortality rate due to diabetes. It's crucial to remember that this graph begins at the onset of diabetes. Now, what can we see in this graph? Taurine is represented by the blue line, the control group (no agent) by the orange line, and the group treated with vitamin E and selenium by the green line. A declining line indicates an increase in mortality among diabetic rats.
As we can see, diabetes has a devastating impact, with mortality rates climbing early on. The vitamin E and no supplementation groups, except for those on taurine, show a delay in death in the taurine group. Taurine delayed the first death by 100 days. In humans, this is equivalent to a 9-year delay. What does this mean? Taurine here seems to offer protection from death almost immediately upon supplementation, since the other animal groups began to die days after they developed diabetes. This suggests that taurine is remarkably effective at providing immediate protection from death and delaying mortality far into the future.
When we compare this to the 2023 study, that study showed a significant delay in mortality, but it was unclear whether the longevity benefits of taurine were immediate or maybe took decades of supplementation to manifest. These findings in this study suggest that taurine's protective effects against death are immediate. It looks like taurine acts as life insurance against mortality.
Now, you're probably thinking humans are not rats, but rats, like mice, are mammals just like us. They give birth similarly to us, and rats have all the longevity mechanisms that you and I have. Even if taurine is less effective in humans, let's remember that rats and mice took taurine for only several months and years in the study. In humans, we're talking about years, even decades, of supplementation. So, when we factor in decades of supplementation with taurine, it's going to give taurine more time to do its magic.
To summarize: Insight one, taurine delayed the first death in rats from diabetes by 9 years in human equivalent—that's a lot. Before we go to the second insight of this study, if you want to support this kind of work, you can support my work on Patreon for as little as $3 a month, or subscribe—subscription is free.
Now, let's go to the second insight. Let's move forward 25 years in human years toward the future. We have seen that taurine delayed the first death, but what happens after 30 years in human equivalent? As you can see, 82% of rats on taurine reached what is equivalent to age 30 in humans while on diabetes, whereas in the other two groups on diabetes, only 45% and 40% of the rats survived. Taurine doubled the survival rate compared to the other two groups. Did you notice that the vitamin E group died sooner? Why? We'll discover that today.
The researchers concluded, and I quote, "Survival rates were significantly higher in the 5% taurine supplemented rats rather than in the untreated diabetic rats." When they say significantly, they mean it was statistically significant, meaning they are certain of the result. Now, let's move even further in time, 17 years ahead in human equivalent. So far, taurine delayed the first death from diabetes, then it doubled the survival rate compared to the other two groups. What happens at age 47 in human equivalent? Remember, diabetes causes accelerated aging, so these rats at the age of 47 are probably much older—maybe 55 or 60 in biological age.
Now, let's look at the graph at day 500 with diabetes. As you can see, the taurine group has a 47% survival rate. How many survived in the other two groups? In both, only 18%. This is shocking! Again, 47% survival on taurine versus 18% in the non-taurine group. This is a 160% protection from death by taurine. But as you can see, not much later from that point on, even the taurine group begins to succumb to the accumulated aging damage caused by lifelong diabetes.
The researchers concluded that taurine significantly decreased the mortality rate, while vitamin E failed to increase survival in the late phase of the disease. Taurine significantly decreased glycemia, meaning blood levels of glucose, while vitamin E was ineffective. I continue to quote the conclusion of the researchers: "Taurine supplementation reduces the mortality rate in diabetic rats without influencing body weight. The increase in survival is a very hard endpoint that many anti-diabetic drugs fail to achieve. Whether our results will be extended to humans, taurine, a low-cost molecule, will have staggering implications in terms of both human suffering and financial costs."
Unfortunately, taurine seems to have very weak marketing skills; it cannot hire a spokesperson. Let's touch on diabetes for a second, a very common condition. Let's compare the results we have seen with taurine to our current diabetes drugs. After that, we'll uncover another fascinating discovery regarding vitamin E and selenium—two nutrients appearing in your multivitamin. You'll never look at your multivitamin the same again. Ready? Don't forget to subscribe now.
This study is called "Lifetime Risk of Diabetes in the United States." We estimate that the lifetime risk of diagnosed diabetes to be roughly one in three for males and two in five for females. The estimated lifetime risk is even higher among minority populations. So, all those people have diabetes with a much higher risk of death. How much higher? This study speaks about that diabetes is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease and has been associated with two to four times higher mortality. By the way, you don't need full-blown diabetes to increase your risk of mortality. Higher blood sugar and higher insulin levels, both associated with diabetes, also increase the risk of mortality, and you can have pre-diabetes to have an increased risk of death.
I want to compare that to give you a background on what our current diabetes drugs are achieving today. They definitely reduce the side effects, but how do they affect mortality from diabetes? For example, this study discusses insulin injections, a common management tool for diabetes in people with type 2 diabetes. Exogenous, meaning injected insulin therapy, was associated with increased risk of diabetes-related complications, cancer, and all-cause mortality. That's very concerning—live with diabetes but die sooner—not very good for longevity.
Now we'll check the vitamin E group, as well as I promised you before. There is a fascinating insight there as well. Now, before we do that, how much taurine did they give to the rats, and how was it consumed? As you remember, the rats were given 5% taurine with food. Rats usually consume about 15 to 25 grams per day. This falls into about one gram of taurine per day in humans. It translates into a very high dose—35 to 45 grams per day in humans. This is about eight times the amount they used in the 2023 study, where they used about four to eight grams per day. But this suggests to me that even though there is no need to go so high in taurine, it doesn't seem to have a harmful effect, at least not in animals.
Also interesting is that here they gave taurine with food all throughout the day, unlike the 2023 study where it was given in a gavage with water once a day. This suggests to us that even taking taurine with food will deliver most, if not all, of the longevity benefits. For example, human milk is high in taurine, and taurine is naturally mixed into the mother's milk. So, I suspect nature knows how to absorb and utilize taurine despite it coming with food. This may mean to us that adding taurine, for example, into a protein shake, is probably beneficial and won't lose many of the longevity benefits. Taurine powder, by the way, is much more economical.
Now, let's go to vitamin E because something fascinating happens at the end of the rats' lives and also in the beginning of their lives in the vitamin E groups. This leads us to the fourth insight from this study. Now, if you're like me, you're also interested in what happened in the group supplemented with vitamin E and selenium. Vitamin E is an external antioxidant produced by plants; neither rats nor humans produce it naturally. Selenium is a mineral, not an antioxidant, that helps our body produce many types of antioxidants. Selenium, by the way, is not required by the body to produce glutathione, the natural antioxidant that has been proven to increase longevity.
This is important. In this study, they gave both selenium and vitamin E in combination. What happened to the mice? Let's go to the graph. So, what do we see here? Let's look at the green line, which is vitamin E, and compare it with the orange line, which is no supplementation. First, shockingly, these mice on vitamin E die faster compared to the group without any supplement. This is very surprising. Is this a mistake? In my opinion, no; I'll explain why in a second.
So, what is happening here? If you've been following my channel, you probably already figured this out. Selenium is not an antioxidant and therefore would not have a significant effect on mortality. However, external antioxidants from plants, such as vitamin E, can harm your longevity when you're young and healthy. They will interfere with your natural antioxidant system. This study from 2012 called "Antioxidant Supplements for Prevention of Mortality in Healthy Participants and Patients with Various Diseases" included 296,000 participants. The researchers concluded that beta-carotene and vitamin E seem to increase mortality, and so may higher doses of vitamin A.
What is in common in vitamin E, beta-carotene, and vitamin A? All of them are fat-soluble antioxidants. It's worth noting that this is supplemental vitamin E, not vitamin D in low doses coming naturally from eating vegetables. Now, this is another study: "Mortality in Randomized Trials of Antioxidant Supplements for Primary and Secondary Prevention." We included 68 randomized trials with 232,000 participants in low-bias risk trials. After exclusion of selenium trials, beta-carotene, vitamin A, and vitamin E, singly or combined, significantly increase mortality. This could explain why young rats on vitamin E died sooner, and this is also why I do not recommend my healthy clients, my younger clients, taking multivitamins before the age of 71.
These external antioxidants also undermine your exercise benefits since exercise requires oxidative stress to exert its protection. When you take vitamin E, it can stay in the muscles and prevent this stress. But when we reach the end of our lives, our bodies experience a reduction in natural antioxidant protection, and suddenly vitamin E comes to the rescue. Let's check what happens when we take vitamin E after age 71.
This study from 2011 called "Vitamin E May Affect the Life Expectancy of Men Depending on Dietary Vitamin C Intake in Smoking" found that among over 10,800 participants, vitamin E had no effects on those who were at the ages of 65 to 70 years old but reduced mortality by 24% where participants were 71 years or older. Among 2,200 men with dietary vitamin C intake above the median who smoked less than a pack of cigarettes per day, vitamin E extended lifespan by two years.
So, what happens here? I think between ages 65 to 70, the natural antioxidant defense system begins to weaken. Vitamin E offers some protection but also has a downside; all in all, it has a neutral effect. But when we go to age 75, then the natural antioxidant defense system begins to collapse, and we face runaway aging. Then vitamin E really comes to the rescue, reducing the chance of death by 24%.
What happens to the old mice who supplemented with vitamin E? Did they have the same effect as the older humans in the vitamin E studies we have seen before? Let's go to the graph and see what happens as we progress in the rats' lives. Look at the last part of their life: the remaining 12% of rats who survived this far on diabetes supplemented with vitamin E and selenium simply refused to die for 150 days. So much so that they reached and even surpassed the life expectancy of the taurine group. All of them died together, hopefully peacefully, and at the end, the last group that survived both on taurine and vitamin E outlasted the nonsupplemented group.
To summarize, these are the vitamin E results in the longevity of the rats. With the vitamin E group, they first suffered quick casualties and a higher death rate, but as the rats aged, vitamin E surprisingly helped the last surviving rats extend their lives, reaching the end together with the taurine group, even surpassing it a bit. This supports human data on vitamin E supplementation, which increases longevity over the age of 71, and I suspect this is exactly what happened to the rats on vitamin E near the end of their lives—how vitamin E basically flattened the mortality graph.
Now, what happens when you take vitamin E and C as we get older, over age 70? Let's see from this study what happens then. The name of the study is "Vitamin C and E Supplementation Alters Protein Signal in After a Strength Training Session but Not Muscle Growth." During 10 weeks of training, the study found actually negative effects on young people, but I'm quoting only the part of the elderly. With elderly untrained participants on vitamin C (1 gram per day) and vitamin E (400 international units per day), supplementation facilitated muscle gain.
Another study mentioned in this study reported a protective effect of vitamin C (1 gram per day) and vitamin E (600 international units per day) supplementation on bone loss in elderly women. This, to me, indicates a shift in how our bodies respond to external antioxidants from plants over time.
Now, let's summarize today's insights, and don't forget to subscribe. More good stuff about taurine is about to come—risks, doses, side effects, and future videos.
To summarize today's insights:
1. Longevity isn't just about extending life but also about reducing the risk of premature death. A major cause of early death in humans and also early aging is diabetes. This disease can affect up to one-third of the population and increases the risk of mortality two to fourfold.
2. In a study on rats, taurine significantly reduced the mortality risk from diabetes. First, it delayed the first death by the equivalent of 9 years immediately upon supplementation. After delaying the first death by 9 years in humans, it doubled the survival rate in what would be age 30 in humans and then more than doubled the survival rate at the age of 47.
3. We also have support for the high dose of taurine for aging protection. In this study, they used very high doses, but this time it was administered with food throughout the day. This suggests to us that taurine probably can be taken with food and maybe even with protein shakes.
4. We can also say that this rat study supports the findings of the 2023 study in mice, where taurine significantly increased longevity by 12%. This study suggests an immediate protection of taurine supplementation against death, and here again, we see that we need to supplement chronically with taurine.
So, is this it? Should we take taurine for longevity? The decision is yours. My gift to you is to help you make the right choice for your body. My goal for you is for you to feel confident in what you're doing, especially today, as there is no authority in the longevity field that fully endorses taurine yet. It costs nothing, and it seems to beat almost everything else. 4 grams of powdered taurine cost about $5 per month.
As we dive deeper into taurine research, we'll also explore how it works, the risks, side effects, and especially how it affects your brain when you take it, and of course, the best dosage for longevity. For those interested in my personal use of taurine in my supplement routine, you can get free live updates when you subscribe to this habit formation app, which you can get at WellnessMessiah.com. This app will help you maintain healthy habits, and as a free bonus, you're going to receive free live updates from me about my changes in my supplement routine, as new longevity research on taurine and other supplements comes out.
So, go to WellnessMessiah.com. Thank you for watching, and remember, your proactive approach to health and longevity is what makes you truly awesome.