Mechanisms of action of compounds that mimic beneficial effects of calorie restriction such as lifespan extension: Is taurine a promising candidate?

More than 80 years ago, McCay and colleagues first reported that limiting the amount of food provided to experimental animals (i.e. calorie restriction or CR) prolongs their lifespan and suppresses the onset and progression of various age-related diseases. Today, CR remains the most reliable method of delaying aging in experimental animals, and research into its underlying molecular mechanisms is ongoing. CR has been reported to have anti-aging and life-extension effects on primates, with progress being made toward applications for humans. Studies on mechanisms underlying the onset and prevention of lifestyle-related diseases such as diabetes have elucidated the cellular signaling pathways that regulate energy metabolism, and commonalities have been discovered between the targets of existing diabetes drugs and the signaling pathways affected by CR. This finding has led to research into the discovery of drugs that have the anti-aging effects of CR in the absence of food intake limitations, namely CR mimetics (CRM). Several drugs have been reported to extend the lifespan of experimental organisms, which may thus have the potential to also extend human lifespan. In this article, we outline and compare those drugs that have been reported to date and discuss the possibility of taurine as a CRM, which is a topic of our ongoing research.