Changes in plasma concentration of taurine in stroke.

Taurine is critical for proper brain functioning. Increase in plasma taurine concentration has already been shown in many diseases [1,2,5,10,12,14,17,22,25,47]. The plasma concentrations of taurine in 60 patients, suffering from stroke, were compared with that of 54 healthy volunteers. The plasma samples of the patients were obtained three times in the first five days of hospitalization. A Student's t-test showed a significant difference (P<0.0001) between the plasma concentrations of taurine of the patients group (136.5±8.2mmol/L) and the control group (41.9±2.5mmol/L). In addition, a one-way repeated measures ANOVA test showed that the mean plasma concentration of taurine in the patients during the first five days of hospitalization declined significantly from 136.9±8.2mmol/L in the first day of hospitalization to 120.1±5.9mmol/L on the third day and 110.2±7.0mmol/L by the fifth day (P>0.05). The plasma concentration of taurine was increased in the patients with stroke probably because of brain tissue damage. Although, according to the result of the study, mean plasma taurine concentration in stroke patients declined during five days of hospitalization. Further studies are needed to introduce taurine as a biomarker of recovery in stroke.