(Article medically reviewed by Dr. Zac Hyde M.D)
Are you thinking about using taurine for erections?
Good call, when most people think of taurine, they usually think of energy drinks.
After all, taurine is a key ingredient in Red Bull, Monster, and Rockstar, who together make up about 62% of the $50 billion dollar global market.
And while energy drinks might be your beverage of choice, they don’t exactly scream “healthy lifestyle.”
That’s why you’d be surprised to learn that taurine might actually be good for your wood.
Here are three ways that taurine can help improve your erections.
1: Taurine Reduces Penile Fibrosis
Taurine is technically a “sulphur containing amino acid” but in layman’s terms, it’s a protein your body uses, mostly for making stomach bile but also to promote cardiovascular and skeletal health.
It’s positive impact on cardiovascular health is already a sure sign it’s going to be good for your erections (more on that in a minute) but it can help prevent penile fibrosis.
Penile fibrosis (also called Peyronie’s disease) is when scar tissue forms and causes your penis to either bend in a weird way or, in extreme cases, not fill with blood at all (the scar tissue acts like hair clogging your shower drain — blood can’t get through, so your penis doesn’t get hard).
Unfortunately, this seems to be something that just happens naturally with age, although diabetes does increase the risk significantly (source).
But researchers have found that taurine can help. They looked at rats who had diabetes to see whether taurine impacted their diabetic ED (DED) (source).
They found that taurine helped reduce scar tissue to generally improve erectile functionality, concluding:
“It has been demonstrated that taurine supplementation can enhance sexual response and mating ability in aged rats.”
Unfortunately, the researchers haven’t been able to conclude specifically that taurine will definitely help diabetically-induced ED.
That said, taurine is a good starting point if you’re perhaps getting older and notice your penis is starting to engorge in odd directions.
2: Taurine Boosts Cardiovascular Performance
You know how we mentioned that taurine can help your cardiovascular health? Well, that doesn’t begin to cover it. Taurine is one of those things that not only directly promotes your heart health, but also does wonders to support all the things around it.
Here’s just a few ways that taurine helps your ticker. (And as a good rule of thumb, if something is good for your heart, it’s good for your penis too.)
Taurine helps you exercise harder and longer
Like creatine, taurine promotes heart health by helping your muscles. First, it makes both skeletal and cardiac muscles contract harder and faster.
For your heart, it means that more blood gets pushed through your system in less time, increasing oxygen flow and giving you the ability to push yourself further (source).
Second, it helps your muscles work for longer by reducing the buildup of lactic acid.
Lactic acid builds up in your system when the mitochondria in your muscles can’t get enough oxygen to respire aerobically and have to resort to anaerobic respiration, of which lactic acid is a byproduct of.
Taurine reduces its build up, meaning you can continue to exercise for longer.
Taurine reduces your risk of heart disease
First, people with higher levels of taurine have lower rates of heart disease. Why?
Because many things that predispose you to heart disease are mitigated by taurine (source).
Taurine correlates to:
- A lower Body Mass Index
- Lower blood pressure
- Lower levels of bad fats in your system
- Reduced levels and even a reversal of atherosclerosis (arterial hardening)
- Reduced arterial inflammation
- Increased NO production and levels in arterial cells (source).
All of these things combine to make your risk of heart disease much lower, your blood flow stronger and your erections harder.
Taurine reduces the risk of obesity
Finally, taurine reduces your risk of obesity. Obesity is a causal factor in heart disease and a major impediment to having a healthy erection.
But taurine can help reduce your risk naturally…
Just 3 grams of taurine every day for 7 weeks is enough to significantly reduce body weight as well as reduce your atherogenic index (a cholesterol measure) (source).
What’s more, obesity can actually cause a decrease in taurine levels, creating a vicious downward spiral. Taurine supplements not only reduce the risk of obesity, but can promote weight loss once people are already struggling.
3: Taurine Boosts Testosterone
The last major way that taurine can help promote erectile health is by promoting testosterone production.
It’s not exactly a surprise that T levels have a lot to do with your sexual health, and setting aside your steroid users, generally speaking, the more T you’ve got the better off you’ll be.
Which is why taurine is such a powerful supplement.
Studies suggest that taurine can promote T production in a few different ways.
FIrst, taurine reduces oxidative damage to cells, particularly those in your gonads (source).
Second, taurine can increase levels of testicular SOD and gluthatione, the primary antioxidants in your testes, to further reduce oxidative stress (source).
Finally, taurine seems to just increase how much testosterone your body produces. A study on rats found that a 1% increase in taurine can significantly increase FSH, LH, and T levels with no corresponding increase in estradiol (source).
Taurine For Erections – Conclusion:
Taurine, despite its association with energy drinks, is actually an extremely effective supplement for your erections, particularly as you get older.
It helps reduce health problems associated with age-and diabetes-induced ED, it can help improve testosterone production by clearing up free radicals, and it promotes cardiovascular health in a myriad of ways.
For those struggling with erections that just ain’t what they used to be, taurine is a good place to start.
UPDATE: Taurine For Erections Part 2:
For a few decades now, energy drinks have been slowly infiltrating a world previously dominated by coffee, espresso, and tea.
One of the most popular ingredients in modern energy drinks (and the namesake for the best-selling product of the lot) is taurine.
But what exactly is taurine?
Moreover, does it have any effects outside of providing a boost of energy?
In this article, we’ll grab the bull by the horns and find out.
Taurine & Testosterone
Taurine is an organic amino acid.
However, where some of these acids are essential (lysine, tryptophan, valine), it is merely semi-essential, meaning that it can be both produced and synthesized by the body.
What’s really interesting is that taurine is actually the most common amino acid found in two places:
- Female breast milk
- Male testicles
Now, these two sources are about as far away from each other (both in location and function) as you could possibly imagine.
However, this does hint that taurine does have some sort of hormonal interaction, which may or may not yet be totally understood.
For instance, the fact that breast milk contains high levels of taurine supports the idea that it is far more crucial to human development than previously thought.
Indeed, “mother’s milk” is, by design, a “superfood,” containing everything a baby might need to grow up healthy and strong.
Unfortunately, this poses more questions than it does answers.
Still, it’s a curious idea that (as you’ll see in the next section) a variety of researchers have decided to explore.
Taurine, Testosterone & Erections
Whenever we discuss taurine, there’s a bit of myth-building that we need to cut through in order to get to the real meat of the conversation.
For instance, the substance gets its name because it was originally “discovered” in bull testicles back in the early 1800s.
Because bulls have long been considered the leading sexual studs of the animal world, this immediately led to an assumption that taking taurine must make your manly bits all the more manly.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
After all, science has come a long way since 1800, right?
Below, we’ll outline a number of studies that have attempted to confirm or deny what many proponents of taking taurine claim: that it’s a potent natural testosterone booster.
One of the established facts about taurine is that it makes up roughly 50% of all amino acids present in cardiac tissue.
When ingested, studies show that it can significantly contribute to arterial relaxation and blood flow.
This isn’t related to testosterone, of course, but anyone who’s paid attention to the articles on this site is well aware of the importance blood flow plays in erectile function.
That is: if you want better erections, getting those arteries pumping to your extremities is priority number one.
Taurine is one of the most important amino acids for the overall functioning of our central nervous system.
This means it affects our eyesight, calcium signaling, and the development of muscle tissue.
Moreover, it can support anti-oxidation effects in tissues all over the body, reversing damage caused by free radicals and keeping all parts of your body (including your penis and testicles) healthy.
So those are some of the ways that taurine COULD contribute to male sexual health.
Now, let’s look at testosterone-based studies specifically.
Taurine, Testosterone and Erections Studies
According to a handful of studies, taurine protects testosterone molecules from oxidative damage that might take place inside the sex glands themselves.
This itself is impressive enough to consider taurine a highly desirable supplement.
That is, if it doesn’t increase testosterone levels per se, it could increase the levels leftover by reducing the number of molecules claimed by oxidative damage.
Diabetes and low testosterone levels have a long-established link, with one inevitably resulting in the other somewhere down the line.
Indeed, men with low T are at a disproportionate risk of developing diabetes, as the hormone helps the body’s tissues take in more blood sugar.
However, once diabetes is in full swing, it pillages the remaining testosterone levels at an alarming rate.
Fortunately, taurine has been shown in various studies to protect testosterone molecules from this unfortunate harvest.
A Chinese study from 2010 found that taurine increased superoxide mutase and glutathione levels in the testicles.
These are both known to be super powerful antioxidants, which again supports the theory that taurine may “shield” testosterone molecules and the tissues that produce them from damage.
Those results are made even more impressive by the fact that an increase in blood flow and nitric oxide, which helps trigger the erection response, were also observed.
Moreover, wherever you have more blood flow to the testosterone-producing tissues, you inevitably get more T as well!
One study on pregnant rats found that even a small addition of taurine (1%) to the mother rat’s diet resulted in offspring with significantly higher testosterone levels when compared to placebo rats.
When applied to rats of all ages, a 1% taurine diet resulted in increases in serum testosterone of up to 180% (source).
Another study later found that this effect was also coupled with significant boosts in luteinizing and follicle-stimulating hormone levels.
An in-vitro study performed in 2010 looked attempted to examine the actual mechanism behind taurine’s hormone-boosting abilities.
While not settled science by any means, it was discovered that the amino acid actually stimulates the human chorionic gonadotrophin, or hCG.
This would be more than adequate to induce additional testosterone production and (if proven by additional research) would more than account for the results of the above tests.
Taurine For Erections Conclusion
Obviously, taurine has some extremely intriguing benefits here.
Unfortunately, a lack of human trials (particularly on adults), is keeping some doubts in the mix regarding taurine’s actual benefits.
While we do share remarkably similar reproductive and endocrine systems with rats, animal models are just not good enough for taurine to earn the scientific community’s “seal of approval.”
From an anecdotal standpoint, most men have reported very positive effects after taking regular doses of taurine.
At the very least, the fact that it can protect testosterone molecules from oxidative damage makes it a noteworthy supplement for maximize male sexual health.
Will it shoot your T levels into the stratosphere? Probably not.
However, if it protects the testosterone molecules you already have, boosts blood flow to the penis and elevates to erection gas, nitric oxide.
Those are pretty big benefits in my book.
If you decide to try supplementing with taurine, I suggest starting with 1000 mgs taken before bed.
Just make sure you take it on an empty stomach because the amino acids in meat, eggs or other protein sources will reduce it effectiveness.
