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

In doing some research on glutamine, I referenced the following, The
Ultimate Nutrient, Glutamine, by Judy Shabert, MD, RD. (ISBN  0 - 89529
- 588 - 1) Copyright, 1994.  She makes a couple references to the use of
glutamine as a possible protectorate against the side effects of
chemotherapy.

For those of you who have had incidences of cancer in your family,
buying this book (and paying the author her royalties) may be
beneficial.  I want to cite two examples:

P. 45... (at Harvard University)"...experimental animals were given
near-lethal of the the antitumor drug, 5-fluorouracil (5-FU). One half
of the animals also were given intravenous feeding solution containing
glutamine, while the reminder were given the standard glutamine-free
solution.  Most of the animals given the glutamine survived, whereas
about 50% of the other group died"

Shabert goes on to make the case that glutamine seems to act to protect
the liver against toxic dosages of acetaminophen, and
infection/inflammation of the liver.

Another mention of a chemo drug and glutamine, on page 77:

"Even more remarkable findings came out of another study in which
cancerous tumors were implanted in animals.  The cancers were allowed to
grow for 23 days, then the animals were divided into 2 groups - those
who were given glutamine and those who were not.  After two days of the
special diet, all of the animals were given methotrexate, a
chemotherapeutic drug.  At 24 and 48 hours, after the methotrexate was
injected, the animals were tested, and those that were being given
glutamine were found to have a significantly greater concentration of
methotrexate in their tumors than did the animals on a glutamine- free
diet.  Moreover,  the tumors were significantly smaller in the glutamine-
treated animals.  Another important finding was that the glutaminase
levels in the tumors of the animals given glutamine were lower,
indicating that because there was less tumor, there was not so great a
need to utilize glutamine for (tumor) growth."

However, there is a caveat.  Apparently, glutamine can enhance the
growth of some tumors. The trick is discerning when it is
appropriate...lemme cut and paste a truncated citation from Grateful Med here:

TITLE:  Therapeutic considerations of L-glutamine: a review of the
literature.

            AUTHORS:  Miller AL
            SOURCE:  Altern Med Rev 1999 Aug;4(4):239-48
            Citation ids:  Pmid: 10468648 Ui: 99398871


....Glutamine may be helpful in offsetting this depletion; however, it
may also stimulate the growth of some tumors. The use of glutamine with
cancer chemotherapy and radiotherapy seems to prevent gut and oral toxic
side-effects, and may even increase the effectiveness of some
chemotherapy drugs.

 Italics added by me.. However, if faced with undergoing chemo, the use
of glutamine may be somethng to discuss with your doctor.

The emerging field of the use of nutrients to cure disease is called
immunonutrition, and seems to significantly reduce medical costs in the
treatment of cancer.