<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>

The subject of whether glutamine supplemention should be used for any
therapeutic use is one of controversy.  Exactly how glutamine works to
maintain intestinal integrity is still being studied (primarily in the guts
of laboratory rats under artificial conditions.)  Glutamine is a non-
essential amino acid, meaning that our bodies manufacture it.  In addition,
we obtain ample quantities of glutamine (several grams of it daily) from
foods in our ordinary diet.  There is no question that glutamine does play
an important role in maintaining intestinal health.  As a supplement, there
is some evidence it may be helpful for patients recovering from severe
illness, trauma, malnutrition or stress where the body's supply of
glutamine has been depleted.  But as a daily supplement for other uses
(including "leaky gut"), its use is questionable.

I tried taking L-glutamine in pure powder form for a couple of months,
mixing a teaspoon of it in water at breakfast and dinner.  I noticed no
improvement in my health, and, after 2 months, L-glutamine was causing me
rectal discomfort and difficultly passing stools.  Cutting back the dose to
once a day did not stop this, and I finally discontinued taking L-glutamine
altogether.  L-glutamine is used as a building block in synthesizing L-
histidine, the amino acid precursor to histamine.  I suspect some of the
excess L-glutamine from supplementation went into L-histidine production
increasing the release of histamine and aggravating rectal discomfort from
my existing food allergies.  Also, it's possible that excess L-glutamine
may have been taken in by gut microbes which in turn might have produced
more toxins or allergens and rectal discomfort.  Medical science really
does not understand the necessary balance of amino acids in our bodies.  We
cannot just decide to take amino acid supplements at will without
considering whether the complex biochemistry at work in our bodies will be
thrown out of balance.

Here is some suggested reading:

LE Magazine September 1999
Glutamine: The Essential "Non-Essential" Amino Acid
by Ivy Greenwell
http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag99/sep99-report3.html

American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 74, No. 1, 25-32, July 2001
Glutamine: commercially essential or conditionally essential? A critical
appraisal of the human data
Alan L Buchman
(Note: Total parenteral nutrition (TPN) means non-oral (intravenous)
nutrition.)
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/74/1/25

Journal of Nutrition. 2001;131:2505S-2508S
Glutamine and the Bowel
Peter J. Reeds and Douglas G. Burrin
http://www.nutrition.org/cgi/content/full/131/9/2505S

There are a number of research articles on glutamine in the gut, mostly
research on laboratory rats.  Enter "glutamine AND intestine" in
the "search" window of PubMed to see them:

PubMed, a service of the National Library of Medicine
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi

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