Some Recent Studies on Taurine

rocketscientist

Registered User
Just digging through articles on taurine on pubmed - I found these to be interesting so I post them here (though this is really quick since I have to do some real work now :) )

Mind the following studies were all on mice.

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Tsuboyama-Kasaoka N, Shozawa C, Sano K, Kamei Y, Kasaoka S, Hosokawa Y, Ezaki O.

Division of Clinical Nutrition, National Institute of Health and Nutrition, 1-23-1 Toyama, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 162-8636, Japan; Medical Research Institute, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Tokyo, Japan; Department of Health and Nutrition, Bunkyo University Women's College, Kanagawa, Japan; Department of Food and Health Science, Jissen Women's University, Tokyo, Japan.

The relation between blood taurine concentrations and obesity was investigated. Taurine is supplied to the body by dietary ingestion as well as by de novo synthesis; it is catabolized by cysteine dioxygenase (CDO), which is abundantly expressed in liver and white adipose tissue (WAT). Overexpression of CDO in 3T3-L1 preadipocytes caused a decrease in the level of cysteine (precursor of taurine) and an increase in the level of taurine in the culture medium, suggesting that CDO is involved in biosynthesis and secretion of taurine in WAT. In high-fat diet-induced and/or genetically obese mice, a decrease in the blood taurine concentration was observed along with a decrease in CDO expression in adipose tissue but not in liver. Dietary taurine supplementation prevented high-fat diet-induced obesity with increased resting energy expenditure. Thus, taurine deficiency observed in association with obesity may create a vicious circle promoting obesity. Dietary taurine supplementation interrupts this vicious circle and may prevent obesity.
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And here's one for those of us who take tamoxifen...


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Tabassum H, Rehman H, Banerjee BD, Raisuddin S, Parvez S.

Immunotoxicology Laboratory, Department of Medical Elementology and Toxicology, Jamia Hamdard (Hamdard University), New Delhi 110 062, India; Department of Biochemistry, UCMS and G.T.B. Hospital, Dilshad Garden, New Delhi 110 095, India.

BACKGROUND: One of the most attractive approaches to disease prevention involves the use of natural antioxidants to protect tissue against toxic injury. We investigated the modulatory effects of exogenously administered taurine on the toxicity of the anticancer drug tamoxifen with special reference to protection against disruption of drug metabolizing and antioxidant enzymes in Swiss albino mice. METHODS: Male Swiss albino mice were divided into 4 groups. The extent of lipid peroxidation was evaluated in terms of thiobarbituric acid reactive substances formed. The following assays were performed in the hepatic tissue (a) antioxidant enzymes such as superoxide dismutase and catalase, (b) cytochrome P450 content, (c) glutathione-metabolizing enzymes such as glutathione peroxidase, glutathione reductase, glutathione-S-transferase and glucose 6-phosphate dehydrogenase, and (d) low molecular weight antioxidants (reduced glutathione, ascorbic acid) and protein carbonyl content. RESULTS: Tamoxifen induced lipid peroxidation, protein carbonyl content and inhibited the enzymes of antioxidant defense system. It was also observed that the activities of antioxidant enzymes and glutathione-metabolizing enzymes were considerably stabilized in mice pretreated with taurine. CONCLUSION: Taurine protects the integrity of the hepatic tissue by stabilizing the reactive oxygen species mediated lipid peroxidation and protein carbonyl formation. Additionally taurine may prove to be efficacious as an antioxidant in tamoxifen-induced hepatotoxicity.
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