L-Glutamine

L-glutamine is the most prevalent amino acid in the bloodstream.

It is found in high concentrations in skeletal muscle and lung, liver, brain, and gastrointestinal tissues.

Skeletal muscle contains the greatest intracellular concentration of glutamine, and muscle is the primary place glutamine is stored in the body.

Glutamine is needed by all cells in the body, but the gastrointestinal tract needs the greatest amount of glutamine. Glutamine provides the primary fuel for the nutrient-absorbing cells (enterocytes) that line the walls of the small intestine. Diseases of the intestinal tract (diarrhea, IBD, Colitis, Malabsorption) require far more glutamine, so it is often very helpful to supplementing glutamine for these with intestinal diseases.

Various stressors (such as trauma, infection, malnutrition, chemotherapy, and others) can impact the normal function of the enterocytes of the small intestine by adversely affecting how substances are absorbed. For example, when gut permeability is impaired, it can allow large protein molecules to diffuse across the intestine that would otherwise not do so and enter the bloodstream. The body can identify these large protein molecules as foreign and mount an immune reaction against them, which can result in the development of food allergies.

In numerous animal studies, in which hyperpermeability of the intestine was experimentally induced, the addition of glutamine improved intestinal permeability function as well as its immune function.

Rationale for its Use:

L-glutamine is the most abundant amino acid in the circulation and in the intracellular amino acid pool. Glutamine is the primary vehicle for nitrogen transfer between tissues.

Although it is synthesized in the body from glutamic acid, glutamine is considered to be a conditionally essential amino acid due to a greatly increased demand for glutamine in catabolic states.

During disease, there is an increased need for glutamine, and the body's synthetic pathways might not meet these demands. Because of this, supplementing glutamine might help:

  • Starvation
  • Decreased appetite
  • Surgery
  • Injury
  • Infection

This demand may not be met by metabolic synthesis.

Stored principally in skeletal muscle, glutamine is released as needed and is taken up primarily by the GI tract, where it is used as the preferred fuel for enterocytes of the small intestine. Large bowel mucosal cells (colonocytes) also utilize glutamine, although butyrate as their primary fuel.

Glutamine supplementation has been shown to increase small bowel mucosal thickness, villous height, and nitrogen content, and may preserve the integrity and/or speed the healing of the intestinal mucosa.

Glutamine also enhances intestinal immune function, as it decreases bacterial translocation across the gut wall, increases secretory IgA levels, and decreases bacterial adherence to enterocytes.

Glutamine was found to be beneficial in calves with diarrhea.

Other uses for glutamine might include chronically ill patients that are sustaining a long-lasting catabolic state, following intestinal surgery, as a supplement during endurance training, intestinal permeability disorders, hepatic disease, and immune-boosting of lymphocytes and interferon.


Indications:

  • Small intestinal diarrhea
  • Food Allergies
  • Chronic disease with immune suppression
  • Acute diarrhea
  • Adjunct to antibiotic therapy
  • Giardia therapy
  • Proventricular and Ventricular disease in birds
  • Seeds passing in droppings
  • Diarrhea in Llamas and Alpacas


Dosage:

Dogs:

  • 1-25 lbs=1/2 capsule daily
  • 25-50 lbs=1 capsule daily
  • 50-100 lbs=2 capsules daily

Cats:

  • 1/4 capsule daily

Birds:

  • Small to medium-sized birds (to 250 grams) 1/32 capsule mixed in food daily on food
  • Large (250 grams and over)= 1/16 capsule daily, mixed into food
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