Insights into the cardiovascular benefits of taurine: a systematic review and meta-analysis

This was a systematic review and meta-analysis of 20 randomized trials conducted between 1985 and 2021. The pooled evidence included 808 participants across active taurine arms, spanning healthy adults and patients with heart failure, hypertension, coronary heart disease, cardiomyopathy, valvular disease, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, and related cardiovascular disorders in multiple countries.

Taurine was administered in the included active arms as capsules, tablets, or solution, usually once daily, at doses ranging from 0.5 g/day to 6 g/day. Treatment duration ranged from 5 days to 12 months across the randomized trials.

Taurine supplementation was associated with overall cardiovascular benefit. Pooled analyses showed significant reductions in heart rate, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, and NYHA functional class, along with improvement in left ventricular ejection fraction. The most pronounced effects were seen in heart failure patients, and subgroup analyses also showed heart rate reductions in heart failure and healthy individuals, systolic blood pressure reductions in healthy individuals, heart failure, and other disease groups, and diastolic blood pressure reductions in hypertensive patients. No significant adverse effects were reported, and a dose-related trend was noted for several outcomes, although the dose-response evidence was not uniform.

The evidence is limited by substantial clinical heterogeneity across populations, conditions, doses, and treatment durations, with active-arm sample sizes often small. The dose-response signal was not consistent across outcomes, which reduces confidence in a single uniform effect size and limits generalizability.