<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>> I'd like to add a question to Sharon's post about L-Glutamine. I took it for about three months, and eventually began to gain weight - for the first time in my life - and I'm nearing 70. Within a few months I had put on ten unneeded pounds. I quit taking L-Glutamine, and after a month, I put myself on a low carbohydrate diet and have taken off ten pounds...(easily and without being hungry, by the way.) I have no idea what the relationship was between the weight gain and the L-Glutamine. I read Atkin's book [Dr. A's New Diet Revolution], however, and have begun to wonder whether the L-Glutamine has tipped some balance of insulin production in my body. Does L-Glutamine affect the pancreas? Is L-Glut. a possible trigger for diabetes? This list has been carrying messages saying that L-Glutamine is helpful for those who have never been able to gain weight. That seems to be true, but is there a price to be paid for that weight? Does anyone out there know the scientific answers to these questions? I suppose we need an endocrinologist for this one. Sharon wrote: >Recently it was posted that our villi can heal in just a short six days >after going gluten free. If not quite this soon, maybe in six weeks. ****** From my reading, I have learned that a healthy person's villi regenerate themselves every three days or so, but that may not apply to the flattened villi of a celiac who has been ill for a while. Again, we need someone with scientific training to fill in the missing information. ***** Back to Sharon: > If >we are taking the amino acid L-Glutamine to help our villi heal, how do >we know when we should stop taking it? Or is it wise to take it >continually just in case of gluten accidents? I have been gluten free >since September and have been taking L-glutamine for almost as long. >Anyone know if I can safely stop taking it? So I'm casting these questions into the wild blue yonder and hoping that someone out there on the CELIAC LIST knows the answers. Gayle Kennedy