<<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.