Open a Red Bull, a Monster or almost any energy drink and you'll find taurine on the label, usually next to caffeine and B vitamins. Most people who drink them have no idea what it does or why it's there.
Taurine is an amino acid your body already makes in small amounts. It was first isolated from ox bile in the 1800s, which is where the name comes from.
The taurine sold today, including in energy drinks, is synthetic and plant-based, according to Cleveland Clinic, not extracted from animals.
It also isn't a stimulant. It helps regulate cellular hydration, forms bile salts for digestion and acts as an antioxidant. The caffeine in the can is doing the wake-up work.
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What the muscle research actually shows
The strongest case for taurine as a supplement is in exercise recovery. A 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis in Heliyon, a Cell Press journal, pooled randomized controlled trials of taurine supplementation in athletes.
The reviewers looked at blood markers of muscle damage, mainly creatine kinase and lactate dehydrogenase, plus subjective pain scores.
Some trials showed a significant reduction in creatine kinase and lactate dehydrogenase. Others found no meaningful effect on the markers or on muscle soreness.
The authors used the GRADE approach and rated the overall certainty of the evidence as low, largely because the individual trials were small and varied in design.
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Taurine may blunt the muscle-damage response to hard exercise, but current trials cannot say by how much or for whom.
The kidney angle almost no one talks about
The more clinically interesting story is in the kidneys.
A study in the journal Transplantation, published in September 2024, examined urine and tissue from kidney transplant recipients and reported that low urinary taurine was a hallmark of injured kidney allografts.
Low taurine in the urine was associated with poor kidney function, chronic structural changes in the graft and worse graft survival.
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That built on an earlier Nutrients cohort study of 678 kidney transplant recipients followed for a median of 5.3 years.
Each doubling of urinary taurine excretion was associated with a 26 percent lower risk of late graft failure.
Neither study proves that taking a taurine supplement will protect a transplanted kidney, but researchers are now openly asking whether it might.
Who is actually short on taurine
The body makes taurine from the amino acid cysteine, but not always in sufficient amounts. That is why taurine is often described as conditionally essential.
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In a review of taurine and the renal system in the Journal of Biomedical Science, researchers noted that urinary taurine excretion is low when dietary taurine is restricted, as in a vegetarian or vegan diet, and higher on a diet rich in meat and seafood.
Older adults, people with chronic kidney disease and those who eat no animal products tend to have the lowest circulating taurine. Critically ill patients can also be depleted.
Safe dosing and the drug interactions to know
The European Food Safety Authority estimated an observed safe level of about 6 grams of taurine per day from all sources in adults, well above what a typical can of energy drink provides.
That is not a recommendation to take that much, only the upper limit at which no adverse effects were observed.
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Cleveland Clinic notes that taurine can interfere with the enzymes that break down some prescription medications, including certain antidepressants, antiseizure drugs, blood thinners and statins.
Anyone on prescription treatment, and anyone with kidney or liver disease, should talk to a doctor before starting a taurine supplement.
This article is made and published by Ida-Marie Palm Varbæk, who may have used AI in the preparation.