Effects of Glutamine

What you can expect from glutamine?
This dietary supplement should stay away!

Glutamine is undoubtedly one of the most popular dietary supplements in the last twenty years. This is despite the fact that the amino acid is not essential or important for either muscle growth or fat metabolism (the body can produce the required amounts of self). Only under very special circumstances that the fire damage, the amino acid can be vital.

As much as 65 - 75% of all the glutamine you consume is sucked up by the intestine, and will not reach the bloodstream. So then one can ask why so many believe that glutamine supplementation is needed to build muscle? The myth probably originated from studies on rats, where the isolated muscle and the added glutamine. Here then are both increased protein synthesis and reduced degradation of protein. The amount of glutamine in the muscle was actually increased tenfold, which is not possible with glutamine supplementation in humans.
Effects of Glutamine

Glutamine and muscle growth
Neither oral and intravenous glutamine taken shows no effect on protein synthesis in humans. One sees no big changes in glutamine levels in muscle. These findings are well supported by available literature. In a study compared the effect of, respectively. 80g 80g glutamine and maltodextrin in a 6-week strength program. One found no difference in markers of muscle growth and strength increases.I another study examined the effect of Mon 30g glutamine before training on strength and muscle growth. Here, too, found no difference between control group and the group who ingested glutamine.

Glutamine and fat burning
What about the fat-burning effect that so many brag about? In one study, participants were given 0.25 g glutamine (equivalent to 12.5 g for a person weighing 50kg) with a meal. Here it was noted that the combustion increased by 42 calories. In other words - you can either cut down on fettintaket with a few grams, to achieve the same effect.

In another study, a group of switches divided in two. Both were put on a reduced calorie diet with 1.5 g protein per kg body weight. One group received in addition 0.35 g / kg glutamine for 12 days. The extra glutamine turned out to have no additional effect - the decrease in fat nag and body weight were identical.

Waste of money?
For most people, supplementation of glutamine to be wasted. There are some studies that show that with large amounts of training will be able to support imunnforsvaret with glutamine, but if you have a normal protein intake, so you cover this in an excellent way already.

If you still feel that you get a dividend of glutamine, there is nothing in the way that you continue to use it, but you must also take into account that the effect is probably a placebo.

References:
1. Mittendorfer one. al. Whole body and skeletal muscle glutamine metabolism in healthy subjects. Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab. 2001

2. MacLennan PA et. al. Inhibitions of protein breakdown by glutamine in perfused rat skeletal muscle. FEBS Lett. 1988

3. Svanberg E et. al. The effect of glutamine Wed balaance protein and amino acid flux across arm and leg in healthy volunteers Tissue. Clin Physiol. 2001

4. Candow DG. Effect of glutamine supplementation combined with resistance training in young adults. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2001

5. Antonio J et. al. The effects of high-dose glutamine ingestion Wed weightlifting performance. J Strength Cond Res. 2002

6. Iwashita et. al. Glutamine supplementation increase item postprandial energy expenditure and oxidation in human barrel. JPEN bracket Eneteral Nutr. 2006

7. Melis GC et. al. Glutamine: recent Developments in research Wed clinical significance of glutamine. Curr opine Clin Nutr Metab Care. 2004

8. Castell L. Glutamine supplementation in Citro and in vivo, in exercise and in immunodepression. Sports Med. 2003.