The Benefits of Taurine and Nitrates

I recently attended a webinar presented by Dr. Michael Greger on the amino acid taurine. While Dr. Greger is, first and foremost, a proponent of plant-based nutrition, his most recent book, How Not to Age, was specifically about how to combat the aging process with nutrition and some other select therapies. Therefore, he was interested in a recent study on supplementing taurine that showed potential longevity and healthspan boosting effects. This study was the basis of the webinar.

During the presentation, Dr. Greger compared taurine to nitric oxide, a molecule which has health and performance benefits in humans. He asserted that while they both have benefits, they also may only be safe for consumption in the context of a whole-food, plant-based diet! 

The precursor to nitric oxide in our bodies is dietary nitrate, which we get primarily from dark leafy greens and beets. However, after metabolizing from nitrate to nitrite and when combined with amines and amides, which come from animal proteins, it forms nitrosamines, which are a powerful human carcinogen (and one of the reasons that cured meats are considered to be carcinogenic - because they are cured with nitrite, they come with the nitrosamines already made!) However, in the presence of vitamin C and other antioxidants, the nitrites don’t turn into nitrosamine. A study suggests that this protection requires a predominantly or fully plant-based diet though.

Similarly, taurine has benefits and dangers that can be mitigated through plant-based eating. Metabolism of taurine makes hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and deoxycholic acid, both of which are inflammatory and can damage DNA and promote tumor growth, respectively. But, butyrate, a short-chain fatty acid made by our good gut bacteria, can protect against H2S. In addition, saturated fat seems to increase the metabolism of taurine into the dangerous secondary compounds. In other words, a whole-food, plant-based diet, which is high in fiber and low in saturated fat, will provide optimal protection against the negative side effects of taurine metabolism.

With the deleterious effects mitigated by a nutritious plant-based diet, we can focus on the performance, health, and longevity boosting benefits of both nitrate and taurine.

We metabolize dietary nitrate first into nitrite and then nitric oxide. Nitric oxide is a vasodilator, allowing our arteries to supply more oxygenated blood to our tissues. In our muscles, this translates as improved muscle strength & function as well as increased exercise tolerance and performance. In other tissues, this translates to better, firmer erections. Healthwise, nitrate seems to slow metabolism by allowing our mitochondria to be more effective and extract more energy from each calorie. Many fitness influencers focus on trying to speed up metabolism, but a slower metabolism is associated with a longer life - better to have a slow, efficient metabolism than a fast, inefficient one.

In the webinar, Dr. Greger focused on taurine’s health and longevity benefits, but like nitrate, taurine has performance benefits too. The most consistent benefits seen across studies are improvements in fat metabolism, reduced muscular fatigue and damage, and increased power production. For the health benefits, Dr. Greger shared that in population studies, higher levels of taurine in the blood is correlated with less obesity and type 2 diabetes. Additionally, it lowers blood pressure and improves vascular function. It also can combat c-reactive protein, a potent source of inflammation.

After the webinar and with my additional research and armed with the protection of my whole-food, plant-based diet, I’m considering deliberately supplementing both nitrates and taurine for the ergogenic (performance-boosting) and health benefits: I’ll call it my “tauronox protocol” (“tauro” from taurine and “nox” from nitric oxide). Dr. Greger says that taurine powder is easy to synthesize, so it is cheap to buy in bulk, and I recently got a dehydrator that I can use along with a blender to make beet & beet green powder. I’ll mix the powders together and can experiment with taking it on a salad or mixed with water or something!