Taurine concentrations in congestive heart failure.

The concentration of taurine in the left ventricular muscle of hearts of patients who died of chronic congestive heart failure was twice that of patients who died of other causes and had no cardiac pathology. There was no corresponding difference in taurine concentrations in aortic tissue between the two groups. Stress-induced hypertension in rats also led to an increase in taurine concentration in the heart, whereas that in skeletal muscle and brain showed no significant alteration when compared to unstressed animals. Spontaneously hypertensive rats, of the Wistar-derived Okamato strain, showed a similar elevation in cardiac taurine compared to age-matched control Wistar rats.