It appears that the trial is still ongoing: https://www.cancer.gov/research/participate/clinical-trials-...

The theory is that the taurine added to the drinks is feeding gut bacteria that then produce hydrogen sulfide that damages the intestinal lining.

>The research team discovered that leukaemia cells feed on taurine through a process called glycolysis, in which cells break down sugar to produce energy.

>This process helps cancer cells multiply more rapidly, worsening the disease.

If I’m reading this right, it doesn’t cause cancer, but if you already have cancer it may make it spread faster.

From the title, I read this expecting another lame observational study which I would probably distrust on the basis that it doesn't show anything causal. It's not that! Rather, if I understand it, they (1) took mice and introduced leukemia cells and (2) took human leukemia cell lines. In both cases, they found biomarkers related to leukemia growth.

(I welcome corrections to that understanding from experts!)

Personally, this seems far from convincing evidence that taurine in energy drinks is actually causing cancer. But it is suggestive and it seems like one might reasonably avoid taurine out of an "abundance of caution".

I am once again begging hn for an "in mice" rule when posting studies

I wouldn't draw any medical conclusions from that paper, it's really not looking at anything like that. And the title of this article does not represent the paper at all.

They did some experiments to find pathways in the cells that play a role in leukemia. And they found that taurine receptors appear to be important in some way. So this is an interesting starting point, but not anything like what is suggested in the title.

If I understand the paper right, "the cells feed on taurine" is also just wrong. What they see is that taurine plays a role in regulating glycolysis in those leukemia cells. And of course glycolysis uses glucose as indicated by its name, and taurine looks nothing like glucose.

Important point: The biomedical research that made this sort of study possible where it wasn’t before is under attack by RFK and DOGE. The study used scRNA-seq, CRISPR, and leukemia enriched stem cells to help identify a potential causal pathway. All these technologies were developed with NIH funding. The detailed, quantifiable research shown in this study relied on these technologies and is superior to epidemiology studies that would only show a vague association between energy drink consumption and higher cancer rates.

Trump/RFK has proposed slashing the NIH budget by 40%. Further, DOGE and Trump political appointees are deeply embedded within the NIH and are preventing research grants Notice of Award (NoAs) from going out. This will have disastrous consequences for biomedical research.

Don't completely discard the danger but keep in mind ANY supplement that improves cell efficiency also helps cancer, with very rare exception.

1000x times more worried about micro-plastics and forever-chemicals now saturating every water source on the planet, that cannot possibly end well for cancer rates and other diseases.