5 Proven L-Glutamine Benefits - Healthy Focus (2024)

Last Updated on December 10, 2019 by Marc Seward

What is L-Glutamine?

Are you familiar with L-Glutamine? Popular in the athletic community, L-Glutamine helps enhance athletic performance and build muscle tissue. Out of the gym, L-Glutamine is known for its healing abilities in your gut. Used in powder or pill form, many people believe that this supplement is the gateway to good health.

You may already be familiar with L-Glutamine as it is the most commonly found amino acid found in the body. In fact, it makes up over half of your skeletal tissue!

Although L-Glutamine doesn’t hold the official title as one of the essential amino acids, in certain situations, it is, indeed essential, particularly during times of physical stress, such as during an intense workout or when your gastrointestinal tract is on the fritz.

Many people like to use L-Glutamine as a supplement: to help build muscle while burning fat or even for leaky gut syndrome. Outside of the gym and outside of your gut, L-Glutamine has many other health benefits that may be beneficial to your health.

L-Glutamine Benefits

Lots of research has surfaced with evidence showing all of the ways L-Glutamine may benefit your body and health. Below are all the ways L-Glutamine can enhance and support your health:

1) Gastrointestinal Health

One of the most common uses for L-Glutamine is for leaky gut and other gastrointestinal issues. L-Glutamine is a nutrient that helps repair and rebuild the intestines.

It seems more and more people are suffering from leaky gut syndrome, which is responsible for many autoimmune diseases inflicting its sufferers. If left untreated, leaky gut syndrome may lead to such inflammatory conditions as arthritis, and psoriasis.

Leaky gut may also lead to such thyroid issues as Hashimoto’s disease. Whatever the outcome, leaky gut is a nasty condition that wreaks havoc on your body.

Fortunately, L-Glutamine may help repair the damage done and send you on the road to recovery. Glutamine, an already naturally occurring amino acid, is known to nourish the cells of the small intestine. L-Glutamine’s ability to promote the health of these cells can help rebuild a damaged small intestine.

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One study found that taking L-Glutamine helps make the small intestine less porous and permeable. Another study found that L-Glutamine helps treat such gastrointestinal issues as inflammatory bowel syndrome, colitis, diverticulitis, diverticulosis, and Crohn’s disease.

Regardless of your gastrointestinal issue, studies have found over and over again that L-Glutamine not only helps to repair tissue and reduce inflammation, but it also helps to eliminate viruses and bad bacteria in the gut.

2) Improves Athletic Performance

If you’re an athlete or are simple physically active and like to stay in shape, taking an L-Glutamine supplement can help boost your performance. L-Glutamine is a major detoxifier.

L-Glutamine’s main job is to remove the excess ammonia from your body. However, L-Glutamine doesn’t let that ammonia go to waste—it converts it into something useful such as urea, amino sugars, and other amino acids.

It is important to maintain a healthy amount of L-Glutamine in your body, especially when working out, when your store can become depleted. Getting enough L-Glutamine protects you from the stresses that working out can have on your body.

3) Builds Muscle

L-Glutamine is one of the main catalysts for building protein. L-Glutamine is essential for building muscles, especially when you’re working out and want to boost your performance.

As mentioned above, during strenuous physical activity, your glutamine levels severely drop; taking a glutamine supplement will prevent this from happening by maintaining adequate levels of the amino acid. Reduced l-glutamine levels are no joke.

It can take up to five days to get back to baseline level, so it is important to consistently take the supplement when engaging in strenuous physical activity. L-Glutamine is also the perfect addition to your workout routine because it helps keep muscles hydrated and helps shorten the recovery process post-workout.

4) Boosts Metabolism

Another reason why L-Glutamine is so widely used within the athletic community is that it effectively burns fat and boosts metabolism. One study found that L-Glutamine encourages the secretion of a human growth hormone.

Natural Human growth hormone is responsible for boosting fat metabolism while promoting the growth of muscle tissue. Post-workout, taking an L-Glutamine supplement helps to burn fat while producing lean muscle mass.

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5) Promotes Healing

L-Glutamine doesn’t just promote healing in the gym, but it also helps your body recover from wounds and illness. Studies have found that taking l-glutamine helps boost the immune system while reducing the probability of infection, especially after undergoing surgery. L-Glutamine has also been found effective in the recovery of burns.

How to Take L-Glutamine

There are different avenues you can explore when it comes to taking L-glutamine. Below is a list of options on how you can ensure that you’re maintain healthy levels of L-Glutamine.

Diet

If you’re not really into the idea of taking a supplement, you can incorporate l-glutamine-rich foods into your diet. By including l-glutamine-rich foods in your diet, you support your immune system and improve your body’s ability to fight off infection while supporting your muscle health. Try adding some of the following foods into your diet:

• Asparagus
• Raw spinach
• Raw parsley
• Cabbage (Especially Cabbage Juice)
• Chinese cabbage
• Spirulina
• Cottage cheese
• Milk
• Yogurt
• Ricotta cheese
• Bone broth
• Turkey
• Venison
• Grass-fed beef
• Pork
• Poultry
• Wild caught salmon, cod, or tuna

Supplement

As a supplement, L-Glutamine comes in the form of capsules, tablets, liquid, or powder. The supplement should be taken with room temperature foods.

Experts warn that you shouldn’t add l-glutamine powder to hot beverages because the heat will kill the glutamine. Before taking L-Glutamine, speak to your healthcare provider about how much you should take. Children under the age of 10 should not take an L-Glutamine supplement unless instructed by a physician.

Side Effects of L-Glutamine

Because many supplements have side effects and may interact with certain drugs, it’s vital that you speak to your healthcare provider before taking any supplement.

Most Common Side Effects of L-Glutamine

Sometimes the body needs time to adjust while taking a new supplement. The following side effects should dissipate overtime. If you find that they side effects persist or get worse overtime, stop taking the supplement and contact your physician.

• Straining while having a bowel movement
• A more frequent need to have a bowel movement
• Cough
• Hoarseness

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Less Common Side Effects of L-Glutamine

The following side effects are less likely to occur while taking an L-Glutamine supplement, some of which may require medical attention.

• Chills
• Fever
• Headache
• Hives
• Itching
• Dizziness
• Light headedness
• Confusion
• Fainting
• Fast heartbeat
• Shortness of breath
• Shallow, rapid breathing
• Wheezing
• Changes in skin color
• Blood in urine
• Pain, inflammation, and redness in arms and legs
• Cold hands and feet
• Swelling lips, tongue, face, eyelids, or around the eyes
• Fatigue
• Stomachache

Some Considerations

Taking an L-Glutamine supplement may interact with certain drugs or any underlying health conditions. Please take the following into consideration before adding L-Glutamine into your supplement routine.

  • Always see a physician before taking any supplement
  • People suffering from Reyes syndrome, liver disease, and kidney disease should not take L-Glutamine.
  • Many experts believe that taking L-Glutamine may worsen certain psychiatric conditions, so speak with your physician prior to use.
  • L-Glutamine may negatively affect people with a history of seizures. People with a history of seizures should only take L-Glutamine under the supervision of their physician.
  • Elderly people suffering from decreased kidney function may need to lower their dose of L-Glutamine. A physician will be able to help with dosing.
5 Proven L-Glutamine Benefits - Healthy Focus (2024)
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