Taurine is also found in food sources, particularly meat. In the human body, taurine is found most abundantly within the brain, retina of the eyes, heart, and platelets. Our bodies produce taurine in small amounts to fulfill these daily functions. Rather, it helps to maintain proper hydration and electrolyte and mineral balance in your cells, supporting the functions of the digestive, nervous and immune systems. Unlike most amino acids, taurine doesn’t play a role in building proteins. Russell Cross is a p rofessor & head of the Texas A&M University Department of Animal Science.L-Taurine, otherwise known as taurine, is a conditionally essential amino acid. Guoyao Wu is a d istinguished professor of animal nutrition, a university faculty fellow and AgriLife Research faculty fellow. It also further underscores the significance and importance of animal agriculture worldwide.įor more information on taurine research, contact Guoyao Wu at the Texas A&M University Department of Animal Science. Because plants contain no taurine, abundant amounts of taurine from all kinds of meats demonstrate another important contribution that animal foods make to improving human health and well-being. beef steak would provide 55 mg taurine, which would meet about 70% of daily taurine requirement by healthy adults. Meat is a major dietary source of taurine for humans. Dietary requirements of taurine have not yet been established for adults. Taken together, these results suggest inadequate production of taurine by humans.
Notably, vegans generally have lower concentrations of taurine in plasma and red blood cells than their non-vegan counterparts. Under stress or diseased conditions (heat stress, infection, obesity, diabetes, cancer and others), taurine synthesis in the body may be impaired due to the suboptimal function of liver and the reduced availability of the amino acid precursors. Additional research has shown that infants cannot produce a sufficient amount of taurine to meet physiological needs and must depend on a dietary source of taurine for optimal health, growth and development.īEEF Daily Blog: Six Reasons Why I Eat Meat Every Day - Mondays, Too That means children and adults fed taurine-free diets are deficient in taurine and could greatly benefit from supplementation with this nutrient. The bottom line is that taurine benefits the cardiovascular, digestive, endocrine, immune, muscular, neurological, reproductive and visual systems.Ĭompared with other animal species (cattle, chickens, pigs, and sheep, for example), humans have a low ability to synthesize taurine at any stage during development. It is now recognized that taurine plays major roles in human physiology and nutrition. In the same year, it was found that consumption of infant formula without taurine could result in cardiac and retinal dysfunction in preterm babies.īoth of these problems can be reversed by the addition of synthetic taurine to infant formula. However, acritical role for taurine in nutrition for mammals was suggested in 1975 with the discovery that retinal degeneration occurs in taurine-deficient cats. Until the early 1970s, taurine was thought to be a biochemically inert molecule. The importance of taurine hasn’t always been recognized.
In contrast to animal products, taurine is virtually absent from plants.
Depending on species, taurine is the first or second most abundant free amino acid in skeletal muscles and the heart. Unlike most other amino acids, taurine is not found as a component of protein but exists as a free amino acid in physiological fluids and cells of animals. Nonetheless, taurine is an essential human nutrient that is abundant in beef and other meats, and provides an enormous benefit to omnivorous humans everywhere. You’ve probably never heard of an amino acid called taurine, most likely because it is rarely mentioned in popular trade magazines or meat science textbooks.