Investigating the effect of taurine on exercise time to exhaustion

Taurine is a sulphur-containing member of an amino acid family that contains methionine, cysteine and homocysteine which are mostly found in mammalian cells. It is reported that taurine has pharmacological and physiological roles such as bile acid conjugation, plasma membrane stabilization, osmoregulation, neuromodulation, neurotransmission, antioxidation and detoxification. There are no sufficient studies regarding taurine and the exercise performance, but there is information regarding the taurine load increase, the exercise performance by protecting the contents of the skeletal muscle taurine that is decreased during exercise period, by regulating the calcium homeostasis, by reducing exercise-induced oxidative stress, by reducing exercise-induced muscle damage, by increasing the cardiac and skeletal muscle contractility during an exercise period, by inhibiting exercise-induced blood lactate production, by creating significant increases in whole-body fat oxidation and by protecting the blood glucose concentration during long-term exercise.This study, which was planned for the purpose of examining the exercise time to exhaustion in acute exercise when different douse of taurine is applied and for examining the effects on the total oxidant-antioxidant status; a hypothesis was established that the taurine load would extend the time to reach the 1.1 respiratory exchange ratio in healthy non-active males, and that there would be no difference between the 3g and 6g loading doses.21 individuals participated in the study whose mean age was 23.56 ± 0.56 years and mean height 176.26 ± 1.59 cm. Bruce test was applied on these individuals before and after the 1 week placebo, 3g and 6g taurine load periods. In order to prevent the possible exercise effects of the performed Bruce tests, the order load of placebo, 3g and 6g taurine load was applied to 3 groups of 7 by randomizing consecutively.As a result, while there was no significant difference statistically in the respiratory exchange ratio measure during the loading period of placebo, 3g and 6g of taurine, in the maximal oxygen consumption, in the maximal carbon dioxide production and in the metabolic equality values (p>.05); the total time to reach the 1.1 respiratory exchange ratio and the total test period did not change after the placebo and the 3g taurine load but significantly increased (p<.01) after the 6g taurine load. For the total antioxidant status, oxidant status and the glutathione, the values before the Bruce test were deducted from the values after the Bruce test and when the obtained differences were examined, no significant difference was found between the before and after placebo, 3g and 6g taurine load periods (p>.05).