Background: Taurine (2-aminoethanesulfonic acid), a conditionally essential sulfur-containing amino acid, is mainly obtained from diet in humans. Experimental studies have shown that taurine's main biological actions include bile salt conjugation, blood pressure regulation, anti-oxidation, and anti-inflammation.
Methods: We conducted a prospective case-control study nested in the New York University Women's Health Study, a cohort study involving 14,274 women enrolled since 1985. Taurine was measured in pre-diagnostic serum samples of 241 stroke cases and 479 matched controls.
Results: There was no statistically significant association between serum taurine and stroke risk in the overall study population. The adjusted ORs for stroke were 1.0 (reference), 0.87 (95% CI, 0.59-1.28), and 1.03 (95% CI, 0.69-1.54) in increasing tertiles of taurine (64.3-126.6, 126.7-152.9, and 153.0-308.5 nmol/mL, respectively). A significant inverse association between serum taurine and stroke risk was observed among never smokers, with an adjusted OR of 0.66 (95% CI, 0.37-1.18) and 0.50 (95% CI, 0.26-0.94) for the second and third tertile, respectively (p for trend = 0.01), but not among past or current smokers (p for interaction < 0.01).
Conclusions: We observed no overall association between serum taurine and stroke risk, although a protective effect was observed in never smokers, which requires further investigation. Taurine, Stroke, Epidemiology, Prospective, Case-control study, NYUWHS.