The company hasn’t given up on ads that portray Red Bull as being more than just a tasty beverage. Red Bull settled for $13 million, claiming that it stood by the correctness of its ads but did not want to engage in the expensive process of litigation. There was indeed a class action lawsuit but it was about a lack of any evidence that the beverage had a stimulating effect beyond what a cup of coffee could deliver. Another bit of misinformation is that Red Bull was the target of a class action lawsuit that claimed the beverage was falsely advertised because it did not actually “give you wings” as the slogan says. Although the compound is found in bull semen, for commercial purposes it is synthesized in the lab and is therefore suitable for anyone wishing to avoid animal products. Incidentally, the taurine in Red Bull is not isolated from bull semen as some circulating misinformation claims. While taurine in small doses seems safe, no humans have ever been exposed to doses of taurine equivalent to what was used in the animal studies. The researchers who carried out the studies state clearly that in the absence of human clinical trial, supplements are not recommended. Neither can supplements that commonly have 500-1000 mg per capsule mimic the amounts given to the animals. An average adult would have to consume about 63 cans a day to equal the dose of taurine given to the test animals. That is far, far more than the roughly 40-400 milligrams in our daily diet. In the trials where the greatest benefits were seen, the animals were given a gram of taurine per kg of body weight every day. Taurine also suppressed older, damaged “senescent” cells that refuse to die and begin to excrete inflammatory cytokines that may trigger aging and diseases such as Alzheimer’s. That is why it is noteworthy that both in mice and monkeys, health span was increased as determined by decreased DNA damage, reduced markers of inflammation, less fraying of chromosomes and improved functioning of mitochondria, the organelles in cells where energy is generated. The goal of anti-aging therapies is not only to increase the life span, but also to increase “health span.” Extending life is not particularly desirable if the added years are filled with misery. Since monkeys live much longer than mice, we will have to wait for follow-up studies to see if the monkeys also live longer. Females and males lived 10% and 12% longer respectively. The life span of the worms and mice increased, significantly in the case of the mice. Worms, mice and rhesus monkeys fed taurine were compared in various ways with worms, mice and monkeys who did not receive the compound. That is exactly what the authors of the paper in Science did. These observations do not prove that taurine has a causative role in disease or aging, but that possibility is worth exploring. Furthermore, blood levels tend to decrease with age. Taurine is present in human blood and a number of conditions ranging from diabetes and obesity to hypertension and inflammation are associated with lower levels. The stimulant in Red Bull is caffeine, albeit there is less present than in a cup of coffee. That in a curious way justifies the logo of two bulls charging at each other on every can of Red Bull despite the fact that there is no evidence of taurine being a stimulant. A bull certainly conjures up an image of energy, which may be the reason that taurine was incorporated into the beverage. It was back in 1827 that German chemists Friedrich Tiedmann and Leopold Gmelin first isolated a compound from bull bile that came to be called “taurine” from the ancient Greek word for bull or ox. It is found in fish and meat, and while it has many important biochemical functions in the body, it is not an essential component of the diet because the body can make it from cysteine, an amino acid that is readily available from proteins in the diet. Taurine is not exactly an amino acid, it is an aminosulfonic acid and unlike common amino acids, it is not incorporated into proteins. The only information provided on Red Bull’s website is that “taurine is an amino acid, naturally occurring in the human body and present in the daily diet.” No argument with that. Why does the beverage contain taurine? That is somewhat of a mystery. Prior to the buoyant accounts of the study with the alluring title “Taurine deficiency as a driver of aging,” it was mostly people who read the list of ingredients on the label of the “energy drink,” Red Bull, who were familiar with the chemical.
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