Taurine and aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage prognosis.

Despite its beneficial effects for the cardiovascular system, taurine remains a controversial substance. Taurine increases cardiac muscle strength and prevents arrhythmias, but its benefits go beyond this. Determining taurine levels may become an issue of life or death. In aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage, taurine may be a warning signal informing of the risk of death in a patient. High plasma taurine levels may identify those patients at a high risk for death or a vegetative state at discharge from the hospital; thus, taurine may be a vital marker for the prognosis of this disorder. This is even more relevant considering that the result occurred in patients with a good neurological grade at admission that would usually receive a good prognosis but, despite this, one out of four died or remained in a vegetative state. Maybe taurine is key to explain this apparent paradox.