If you’ve noticed that long covid seems to overlap with being a young woman with a neurotic allegiance to progressive orthodoxies, then you’re not alone. Initially, it made me very skeptical that this is a genuine condition.
But there’s a relatively simple and elegant explanation for this observation, that doesn’t require dismissing people’s experiences: Taurine. Taurine binds to the GABA receptor, the same place where alcohol binds to make you more relaxed, less anxious and (feel) socially competent. You can observe in mice given gut bacteria from autistic children, that these bacteria are less inclined to produce taurine.
Europeans have been drinking high amounts of alcohol for many centuries. Since 1800, consumption has been declining in the UK:
The situation is actually worse than it looks, because modern alcohol consumption has a pareto distribution: A small minority of the population now drinks most alcohol. That was not possible for medieval peasants: Everyone had roughly the same amount of alcohol available.
So I would argue that as Europeans we’re all kind of designed by evolution, to have some alcohol in our system. Not a lot, we were unable to produce strong beers for a long time, but just some. A weak beer did not give you diarrhea the way water from the local river people defecated in did.
And keep in mind, you would have been exposed to alcohol during your developmental period too. Your mother would have been drinking beer while pregnant and you would have been drinking it as a child, for the simple reason that the water was not safe to drink.
We can speculate about why it’s mostly leftist women who seem to suffer long COVID. Scientists look at all sorts of various immunological differences, I’m sure there’s some of that. But you have to keep in mind, that a low status white male is just not going to report having long COVID. He’s going to smoke cigars in his dark room while he makes youtube videos about how all the vaccinated will die of cancer.
It’s the same symptom (neuroticism), expressed in a different manner. Neither of these people are going to be invited on a TV game show. You need some more GABAergic neurons inhibiting activity in your brain to stop you from acting too autistic.
“Well you’re not going to be invited either!” I’m well aware. That’s why I want to preach the gospel of taurine to you. Vegans don’t really get it in their diet, but the body is supposed to be able to make sufficient amounts of it on its own, unless you’re one of those minority of Europeans who have an error in one of the copies of the gene that produces it, or the gene that transports it.
But importantly, it seems to be the clearest biomarker we see in severe covid, or long covid. It discourages an excessively inflammatory immune response. The body will shut down an excessively inflammatory immune response in other ways when it has to. As an example, serotonin levels can be reduced, by simply reducing tryptophan uptake and increasing the metabolism of serotonin. You don’t want that, for relatively obvious reasons.
I think with the current state of the world, most people should supplement taurine. For 12 euro you can get a kilo of the stuff and it lasts basically forever. If you take a gram per day, that lasts you three years. A gram per day is fine to aim for, although you may want to take a double dose for the first week or so. This is the point of the post where I’m supposed to post some amazon affiliate link, but my taurine deprived brain is not shameless enough yet to do such a thing.
If you want to get it through your diet, your best bet would be shellfish:
What’s going to happen is that your brain is gradually going to change, as a result of which your external reality gradually changes too.
I don’t really mind eating oysters and mussels. These animals don’t have a central nervous system and growing them for human consumption enriches our ecosystem. If I want to worry about hurting oysters or mussels, I would be better off worrying about the insects killed by pesticides and the combine harvesters killing rodents. In fact, when I ride my bicycle, I will inevitably kill snails and I’m forced to kill mosquitoes if I want to sleep. These animals are more likely to suffer than shellfish. The problem for me is really that chickens, cows and pigs are basically just like human children in their personality and understanding of the world.
Anyway, when you take taurine, you’ll become more mellow and feel less repulsed by other people. This is a good thing. The problem with a brain where the GABA receptors don’t get stimulated enough is that you fill your mind with all sorts of concerns about grand existential problems you can’t really influence yourself. Wokies and low status white males both have this tendency.
You have to keep in mind though that the effect is subtle and takes time to develop. Just consistently supplement with it for a few months, to see what it does.
But yes, take your taurine. Even if it fails to make you less neurotic, it could just be what you need to avoid becoming more neurotic. To be neurotic essentially means to suffer excessively under problems that are an intrinsic element of human existence.
You can consider adding some creatine, beta-alanine and n-acetylcarnitine too. There are probably sites out there selling the whole thing, but the big one is really taurine.
I think after the Toba catastrophe our ancestors who survived the bottleneck were probably consuming oysters constantly and so we ended up with a metabolic requirement above what we synthesize. Add SARS2 to the mix and now we need even more of it.
Anyway this post has already gotten much larger than it needs to be, take a gram of taurine daily and thank me later LSWMs.
I am unsure about using carnitine as a vegan. I use all of the above except carnitine. But I am not sold on carnitine yet, it appears most of it might get metabolized into TMAO as it has poor oral bioavailability. This is also why red meat seems to be unhealthy according to mainstream science, i.e. due to its carnitine content. Do you have any further information?
Carnitine is metabolized to TMAO in people with dysbiotic guts. If your microbiome is in good shape (like with largely plant-based diet), no worries.
Carnitine can also be taken by injection, completely avoiding that problem, as well as being MUCH more effective (for fat loss, mitochondrial optimization, etc.) by virtue of much better bioavailability.
Maximize carnitine bioavailability by using glycemic/insulinemic carbs along with it. The insulin is needed to drive the carnitine into cells.
You could also take acetyl carnitine, if you want it to reach your brain.
A friend of mine was complaining about artificial ingredients in drinks and she specifically mentioned taurine.
As a cat lover I informed her that taurine is absolutely essential in the diets of cats; more so than dogs.
That was all I knew about it.
I’ve always had a taste for smoked oysters!
Low taurine levels are often associated with increased ammonia. Supplementing with taurine should help lower ammonia levels. By the way, cannabis might also help reduce ammonia levels. Good posts.
cannabidiol, not cannabis.
Spaghetti with clam sauce, mmmmm.
Eat those shellfish, enjoy life, and get your taurine.
But I won’t eat oysters raw.
Univalve limpets are cleaner and safer.
I’ve been taking taurine since 2020 in the hopes of staving off the heart disease that kills nearly everyone on both sides of my family.
And there is lysine. I’ve been taking that daily since a 2020 South American study found that lysine prevents covid (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/345916326_Amino_Acid_L-Lysine_SARS-CoV-2_COVID-19_Prophylaxis). Lysine also works against influenza A (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8310019/)(“Here, we demonstrate the effects of two basic amino acids, arginine and lysine, and their ester derivatives on infection of two enveloped viruses, SARS-CoV-2, and influenza A virus. We found that lysine and its ester derivative can efficiently block infection of both viruses in vitro. Furthermore, the arginine ester derivative caused a significant boost in virus infection. Studies on their mechanism of action revealed that the compounds potentially disturb virus uncoating rather than virus attachment and endosomal acidification.”)
I stopped drinking my nightly glass of wine for four months at one point due to the precepts of my religious sect. My bloodwork went from great to worse and my doctor told me to go back to drinking.
A colleague of my husband’s just recently developed dementia; he is only 77 y.o.. And his 74 y.o. wife just died; we don’t know what of. This is really disturbing; people in their social class don’t have this happen so young. I’m sure they had every shot. The worst part is that the guy’s IQ is (was) about 20 points higher than mine; really it is a terrible waste. I think fate wants me alive for a while for some monstrous purpose, or maybe a good one.
Yeah I would benefit from some more lysine.
When you eat homemade sourdough bread, the bacteria produce a bunch of lysine. But I haven’t really gotten around to making sourdough bread lately.
I don’t really like being the sort of guy who pours a cocktail of little white powders into his fruit juice, but the taurine noticeably gives me so much energy, so I have to keep taking it.
Homemade sourdough is the best.
> I think fate wants me alive for a while for some monstrous purpose, or maybe a good one.
It’s always hard to tell the difference, isn’t it.
At least to those with a spark of Sophia within them
Taurine first came upon my radar during the influx of “energy drinks” during the late 90s. At the time, I was given to understand that the inclusion of taurine was because it was in some way GABAergic, and so tamped down on the jitteriness of of the high caffeine content of the drinks.
I’ve since been told by many that no, the taurine is meant to augment the caffeine, to make the drink more energetic
.
Fast forward a decade or two, and I am seeing taurine recommended for all manner of things.
When I was in South America last year, investigating my odd symptoms, I told my cardiologist uncle that I had been taking taurine for general health purposes. He suspected it might be a culprit.
In any case, it should be mentioned that the fact that taurine has some measure of affinity for GABA receptors should in no ways be taken to mean it will relax you or be anxiolytic.
Taurine is one of dozens of “sleep aids” I’ve tried over the years. In many respects it shares many similarities to glycine’s mechanism of action.
But there is a significant minority of users who report paradoxical responses to both taurine and glycine. Instead of being sedating and anxiolytic, these people experience agitation and anxiogenic effects from taurine and glycine.
I’m not sure where I fall on the spectrum. I think the taurine helps with sleep onset, but then I pop wide awake about 5 hours later, long before my usual sleep schedule.
I once saw a Chris Masterjohn video where he addressed this paradoxical effect of glycine/taurine, but it had to do with the complex methylation cycle of the the body, and THAT stuff is hugely complex, above my pay grade, though I’m sure Rad’s big brain could understand it, but I can’t be arsed to look it up.
“I think with the current state of the world, most people should supplement taurine. For 12 euro you can get a kilo of the stuff and it lasts basically forever. If you take a gram per day, that lasts you three years. A gram per day is fine to aim for, although you may want to take a double dose for the first week or so.”
Taurine has a fantastic array of benefits, almost none of which were touched on in this post, and yes, everyone should take it.
I became aware of it in the oughts, having accumulated even then scores of fascinating abstracts on its roles and actions. It is one of the greatest, along with magnesium, niacin, glycine, and a precious few others — biochemical/physiological Swiss Army knives for correction of numerous critical pathways and processes, all adding up to reduced risk of disease and generally better health.
I just started using my SECOND 25-kilo sack of taurine. (I buy bulk for economy.) And btw I am on my third sack of glycine, also great stuff.
IMO, 3 grams taurine daily is a good practical minimum. Personally I use 5 grams per day.