Copyright statement : This article was first published by Slim Dragon Health , a fierce critic of China's obesity problem. I have entrusted a "rights protection knight" to carry out rights protection actions for my article.
Disclaimer : The following text does not make any medical advice, it is only for information sharing. Please proceed under the guidance of professionals.
Please feel free to forward it to your circle of friends . If you need to repost to , please contact the backend.
The number of words edited in this article 
028 words . The estimated reading time is 1
minute.
In my previous article about bone broth, I dug a hole for glutamine, and today I’m going to fill it in~
Glutamine is an important amino acid that has multiple functions in the body. It can be said that it is the most important amino acid , because it is the main protein raw material.
As we all know, proteins are vital to organs and are important carriers, such as transporting substances in the blood; they are also the active ingredients of antibodies, which fight harmful viruses and bacteria.
It can be said that our body cannot function without protein, and glutamine is very important as a protein.
However, some students may have seen some news about cancer . For example, the culture medium of tumors needs to be supplemented with glutamine. If tumors are not added, the culture will be "half-dead".
According to this, glutamine is still the food of cancer cells? Is it good or bad?
In fact, all this is related to the function of glutamine. If a good raw material is beneficial to healthy cells, there is no guarantee that it will not be helpful to cancer cells. After all, cancer cells also develop from healthy cells.
So, is there any way to make glutamine only affect healthy cells without increasing the risk of cancer cells? In fact, there is, you will know after reading.
What is glutamine?
For many students, glutamine is still an unfamiliar term. Let us first understand, what is it? What is it for?
→ Glutamine is the most basic protein raw material
The role of glutamine has been ignored by people, mainly because it has not been found to have a decisive role, but it is the most important protein.
Glutamine mainly has two different forms: L-glutamine and D-glutamine, but the molecular arrangement is slightly different, but they are generally the same.
A common form found in foods and supplements is L-glutamine, which is the form the body produces naturally. D-glutamine is relatively unimportant in the body.
When we talk about glutamine deficiency and supplementation, we usually refer to L-glutamine, which is also the most abundant amino acid in the blood.
Glutamine is found in many foods, of course mainly animal foods. The human body can also synthesize it itself, so the probability of glutamine deficiency is unlikely, but there are cases where the demand is greater.
Mainly when the immune system is compromised because glutamine is a key part of the immune system. It also includes cases of intestinal damage, because glutamine has a special effect on the intestines.
Why is glutamine important?
Normally, glutamine has little chance to express itself. However, if is injured or sick, and the immune system is seriously damaged, glutamine supplementation may be needed.
→ Glutamine and the immune system
As mentioned above, glutamine is the raw material of most proteins, including antibodies . white blood cells are the main output of the immune system, and glutamine is an important source of fuel for white blood cells.
Mainly because glutamine is the most abundant free amino acid in human plasma. Rapidly dividing cells such as white blood cells can use it at a high rate to provide energy and optimal conditions for nucleotide biosynthesis.
If you are injured or sick and consume a lot of glutamine, but the intake is insufficient, your body may break down protein and store it in muscles, etc., and your immune system will also decline.
If you have ever seen the prescription for burn patient , you will find that it involves a high protein diet, a high glutamine diet or glutamine supplements, etc., just to support the immune system .
A study shows that glutamine supplements may improve health, reduce the risk of infection, and shorten the length of hospital stay after surgery.
Glutamine can also improve immune function in cells infected with bacteria or viruses.
However, the effect in healthy cells is not very obvious, probably because it is not lacking in normal cells.
→ Glutamine and Gut Health
At first glance, glutamine has little to do with gut health.
However, in addition to immune cells , intestinal epithelial cells also divide rapidly. So free glutamine in the plasma needs to be captured to fuel the intestinal cells.
Meanwhile, glutamine helps keep the connections in your gut strong. Studies have shown that it can regulate intestinal permeability and the expression of the tight junction protein in a variety of situations.
We all know that the intestines maintain integrity through tight connections . When the tight connections are damaged or deceived, harmful waste and bacteria will leak from the intestines, which is called "leaky gut."
Intestinal leakage is not the leakage of macromolecules. In many cases, it is very tiny holes, so it will not cause very serious consequences in a short time, but it can cause long-term chronic inflammation.
Not only that, leaky gut will also keep the immune system in a tight state at all times, so it is easy to develop allergies, increased food sensitivity, or autoimmune diseases etc.
It can be said that increased intestinal permeability is the "root of all evil" in intestinal diseases. Excessive consumption of glutamine will lead to villus atrophy, reduced expression of tight junction proteins, and ultimately increased intestinal permeability.
Glutamine mediates the synthesis of N-acetylglucosamine and N-acetylgalactosamine, both of which contribute to mucin formation and are important for intestinal surface integrity.
→Glutamine and Muscle Synthesis
Since glutamine is a building block of protein, many scientists believe that glutamine, as a supplement, can improve athletes' muscle growth or exercise performance.
During illness or injury, the demand for glutamine increases greatly, and muscles may be broken down to obtain it. However, can glutamine supplementation under healthy conditions also increase muscle?
Research is mixed, ranging from studies showing it has no effect on muscle mass or performance to studies showing improvements in both muscle mass and strength.
Some researchers have also speculated that glutamine supplements may reduce muscle soreness and promote athletes' recovery after strenuous exercise.
However, there is no reliable research conclusion. Although some studies believe that glutamine plus carbohydrate helps reduce blood markers of fatigue after exercise, it does not increase the amount of glycogen in the muscles.
But we should note that many athletes not only consume a large amount of protein, but also supplement protein powder , etc., which means that may have consumed a large amount of glutamine , and the role of this cannot be ignored.
Glutamine can fight aging
Some recent studies have found that a lack of glutamine may accelerate aging, and glutamine supplementation can reduce oxidative stress -induced aging in mice.
Glutamine is an amino acid critical to cellular function and is involved in the synthesis of various key molecules, such as the neurotransmitter glutamate and the energy molecule ATP.
There are many principles behind glutamine’s anti-aging effects:
. It can participate in regulating mTOR and fight aging;
. It Participate in cell autophagy ;
, reduce glutamine, leading to increased cell death, cell proliferation reduced;
, increase glutamine, reduce cell death.
Some researchers used an aging-induced premature aging mouse model to evaluate the effect of glutamine supplementation in the body.
mice were given a 3% increase in glutamine for two months.
Results: Compared with control D-galactose mice, glutamine-supplemented mice showed improved hair gloss and density restored muscle strength, reduced senescence, and increased autophagy.
Does glutamine increase cancer risk?
I wonder if you have ever paid attention to tumor-related experiments. In experiments, sugar is often added. This is to provide energy for the growth of cancer cells and glutamine is also added. Do you know why?
→Cancer cells, you can eat glutamine
Let me tell you a heartbreaking fact: glutamine provides raw materials for normal cells to synthesize proteins, and it is also applicable to cancer cells.
The scary thing about cancer cells is their unlimited proliferation, which requires energy and a large amount of nitrogen source to form proteins. Glutamine is the keynitrogen source.
Not only that, glutamine can not only produce lipids and purine, but also produce lactic acid and other amino acids. For cancer cells, energy and protein are provided at the same time.
Glutamine can penetrate the blood-brain barrier , so glutamine is also required for the development of brain tumors.
This is also something that ordinary amino acids cannot do, because ordinary amino acids cannot reach the brain.
Research on cancer cells has found that tumor cells consume glutamine 5-10 times faster than normal cells.
Glutamine not only stimulates and supports the growth of cancer cells, but is also one of the necessary conditions for malignant transformation of cells in the pre-cancer and early stages.
Seeing this, you may have a question: Is glutamine good or bad?
→ Ketogenic diet can inhibit
In fact, we should not use simple good or bad to evaluate nutrients. As the most abundant amino acid in the human body, glutamine cannot be chosen by itself for what cells it uses.
Because glutamine can be decomposed to provide energy and is a key nitrogen source, rapidly dividing cells have a high demand for it.
Among them are normal cells such as intestinal cells, renal epithelial cells, liver cells, neurons, immune cells, and pancreatic beta cells. When cells undergo abnormal apoptosis or even become cancerous, glutamine becomes an "accomplice."
Of course we cannot stop eating glutamine just because it nourishes cancer cells, so it would be great if there was a way to supplement nutrition without fear of cancer.
Ketogenic diet, is a plan that perfectly fits these two principles.
First, keep the ketogenic diet low-carb, then the cancer cells will lose the main source of nutrition → sugar . Even if there is glutamine, will not proliferate rapidly.
Second, tumor cells sacrifice mitochondrial function in order to proliferate. Because fatty acid oxidation of mainly relies on mitochondria , tumor cells cannot utilize fatty acids and ketone bodies .
The ketogenic diet can ensure normal cell energy supply, and ketone bodies can also penetrate the blood-brain barrier, making the brain use it even faster, and at the same time, it can slow down the development of cancer cells.
The key to slimming down is
Glutamine not only has the above functions, but also plays multiple roles in maintaining the physiological homeostasis of various organs and cells.
such as nitrogen balance and acid-base balance, it is the most important ammonia donor in the kidneys and liver. Excessive ammonia levels will increase, and acidosis requires glutamine to be decomposed into ammonia.
In rapidly dividing cells, such as enterocytes, fibroblasts and lymphocytes, sufficient glutamine can be used at high speed to ensure many functional activities of the human body.
Muscle tissue is the main place for glutamine synthesis. Muscle growth requires the metabolic precursor of glutamine.
So glutamine deficiency may also lead to muscle loss.
The powerful endogenous antioxidant glutathione , also requires glutamine as a precursor. Glutathione can not only reduce oxidative stress, but also anti-inflammatory and improve a variety of diseases.
The human intestine can synthesize glutamine, but its capacity is limited, so it relies on diet to provide glutamine.
Foods containing protein generally have more glutamine, so animal foods are better. Including beef, pork, chicken and other meats, eggs, bone broth, animal offal, etc.
If you are afraid that increased glutamine will increase the risk of cancer, it is best not to consume it together with sugar or high-carbohydrate diets. This is the best environment for tumor cell growth.
