Don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of taurine. Most people haven’t, and that apparently includes Microsoft since it’s not even in my spellchecker.

It’s an amino acid found in the tastiest part of the chicken, aka the dark meat you’ve been told not to eat.

Well, go ahead and eat up — because a new study finds that some women with high dietary levels of taurine have a lower risk of a heart attack.

Researchers from the NYU Langone Medical Center in New York checked the records on more than 14,000 women between the ages of 34 and 65, and found…almost nothing.

Not at first, anyway.

But once they started to break the numbers down, they found that high blood levels of taurine slashed the risk of heart disease by 60 percent in women with total cholesterol levels of more than 250 mg/dL.

The study doesn’t prove that taurine lowers heart risk, nor does it indicate why that connection would even exist. But let’s take a stab at it here and guess that women with higher cholesterol AND high taurine came by their cholesterol levels honestly.

They’re eating natural meats and dairy — all great sources of taurine — and if their cholesterol levels happen to be a little elevated by mainstream standards, they’ve really got nothing to worry about.

And thanks to that healthier diet, they’re probably going to have a lower risk of a heart attack anyway.

Women with high cholesterol and low taurine, on the other hand, might be getting their chicken from a greasy paper bucket and other nutritionally empty sources — and that’s the best way to ensure you’ll experience heart problems eventually.

Again, that’s just a guess. And since this is just one study, I wouldn’t rush out to stock up on taurine in any case (but feel free to grill up some chicken thighs).

When it comes to protecting your ticker, stick with the tried-and-true. And for some tips on the best tried-and-true nutrients out there, I turned to one of the nation’s leading experts on natural health.

Dr. Mark Stengler, a California naturopath and author of multiple best-selling books on natural cures, says there are four supplements everyone interested in cardiovascular health should be taking: fish oil, coenzyme Q10, L-Carnitine and magnesium.

If you’re missing out on any of these, do your heart a favor and add them to your supplement regimen today. They’re inexpensive, easy to find and they could save your life.

Would you starve yourself to live longer?

It sounds a little extreme, because it is… Yet, like clockwork, every few months I come across another study or article extolling the virtues of ultra-low calorie diets for longevity.

The latest can be found in the journal Science. Researchers studying monkeys found that depriving these poor things of nearly a third of their food over 20 years lowered their risk of dying from an age-related disease.

Only 13 percent of monkeys on this borderline-starvation diet met their end through one of those conditions, like diabetes, cancer, or heart disease… compared to 37 percent of the simians who ate normal monkey meals.

To put that in human terms, that would be like a healthy adult man who eats a relatively normal 2,000 calories per day cutting all the way down to 1,400.

We’re not monkeys… and we’re not fed by lab technicians. I don’t believe most people can eat that little every single day, year after year, even if they wanted to. And if you did, how could you be sure you’re getting all the nutrients your body needs every day?

Simple answer: You can’t.

But let’s say this silly starvation plan really worked and that you could somehow force yourself to miss out on all that food, still get all your nutrients and somehow stay sane.

Is that really the best answer?

No way.

Looking to live longer by eating dramatically less is like trying to save on living expenses by moving out of your house and into a tent.

I don’t know about you, but I like my lights and running water.

Fortunately, it’s not a one-or-the other proposition… because you can have your (occasional) cake and live longer, too.

Like so many other things, it comes down to a common-sense lifestyle – diet and exercise – and getting the right nutrients in your body, like antioxidants. Antioxidants help fight free radicals, one of the top causes of aging. You can get some of what you need from some great places – like the resveratrol found in red wine.

But anyone could have told you that… let’s talk instead about some critical nutrients that may help turn back the hands of time that aren’t as widely discussed. If you’re looking to stay young, consider coenzyme Q10, vitamin D, and all the B vitamins, including folate.

Also make sure you get your bioflavonoids, such as quercetin, lutein and zeaxanthin, which may help lower your risk for cancer and heart disease.

OK, I know that sounds like more than a mouthful of pills – but you can easily get most of these from a healthy combination of fresh fruits and vegetables. If you’re not up to that, you can often find some combination of these great nutrients and more in a single high-quality anti- aging supplement.

A $6 billion industry is about to get a serious run for its money – and it’s about time, too.

There’s nothing worse than a Big Pharma med that takes advantage of a captive audience – like the drugs many Parkinson’s patients take that really only offer one kind of relief: they relieve the patients of their money.

But a major new study just getting under way will look at whether coenzyme Q10 can do what even those drugs can’t – and slow the progression of this degenerative disease.

This over-the-counter substance is cheap, readily available, and already showing some great promise. It’s also been linked to everything from heart health and immune system function to easing migraine headaches.

And while it’s great that they’re finally ready to take a closer look at this one, there’s every reason to believe it will deliver on the promise of Parkinson’s relief. Previous research has found that it protects the areas of the brain ravaged by this disease – and that Parkinson’s patients have low levels of it.

One study in 2002 found that patients who took 1,200 mg each day had 44 percent less decline in cognitive and motor function, and were much better able to carry out daily tasks than those who took smaller doses (or none at all).

The best part of all is that, despite its science-fiction name, coenzyme Q10 is a completely natural substance that already exists in your body. Even when it causes side effects, they’re nowhere near as bad as those of many Parkinson’s drugs, which can include psychosis, hallucinations, and delusions.

So when this new study confirms what we already know – and I have no reason to think it won’t – all those pricey Parkinson’s drugs will seem like a bad hallucination.

I’ll be keeping tabs on this new study for you – and I’ll let you know if it reveals anything new or unexpected. But in the meantime, if you or someone you love is suffering from Parkison’s, work with your doctor on adding coenzyme Q10 to the daily routine.

Doctors looking to treat something as serious as heart attacks tend to fall back on their two best and potentially harmful friends—surgery and drugs.