Effects of taurine administration in rat skeletal muscles on exercise

Abstract

To investigate the effects of taurine administrationon exercise, we studied taurine concentrations in rat skeletalmuscles after endurance running and the duration of runningtime to exhaustion, with and without taurine administration.For study 1 we divided 40 male SD rats into two groups:endurance exercise group (n = 20) and sedentary controlgroup (n = 20). Each was further divided into two groups; onereceived distilled water (n = 10) and the other taurine solutionin water 0.5 g/kg/day orally (n = 10) for 2 weeks. The exercisegroup performed treadmill running (60 min) once only aftertheir nursing period. For study 2, we divided 10 male SD ratsinto two groups; one (n = 5) received taurine 0.5 g/kg/day, andthe other (n = 5) received no taurine for 2 weeks; the twogroups then performed treadmill running to exhaustion. Instudy 1, taurine administration increased taurine concentrationsin leg skeletal muscles, whereas the concentrations weresignificantly lower in the exercised groups without taurineadministration. Taurine administration reduced the decreasein taurine concentration in skeletal muscles on exercise. Instudy 2, the duration of running time to exhaustion wassignificantly increased by taurine administration. We concludedthat peroral administration of taurine maintains thetaurine concentration in skeletal muscle on exercise and upregulatesphysical endurance.