L Glutamine For Brain, Gut Health and Leaky Gut (2024)
L-glutamine plays a crucial role in maintaining the health of your gut lining and balancing brain function. Incorporating it into your diet—especially during stressful times—could support your physiological and mental health.
Role of L-glutamine
L-glutamine is a crucial building block for the intestinal cells of the gut. In fact, the intestines rely on glutamine more than any other organ. When glutamine stores are depleted, the intestinal lining becomes vulnerable to damage.
What Stresses the Gut?
A lack of fiber and whole food ingredients combined with a high intake of sugar and additives from processed foods can reduce gut diversity and cause inflammation, Yasi Ansari, a registered dietician nutritionist and spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, told The Epoch Times. Ansari further emphasized that low vitamin D levels and insufficient intake of antioxidants through diet can also adversely affect gut health.
“This is not to say that one needs to completely strip the diet of these foods but rather to focus on emphasizing more whole foods, fruits and vegetables, lean meats, plant proteins, heart-healthy fats, and fiber from whole grains,” she said.
“When it comes to supporting the gut, I recommend aiming to get more cruciferous veggies, a variety of different colored fruits, nuts and seeds, legumes, adding more herbs to meals and snacks, and considering foods that contain probiotics (yogurt, kefir, aged cheeses, miso, tempeh are some examples of these foods),” she continued.
Ansari also said that alcohol can lead to gut inflammation and negatively affect the intestinal barrier, which is essential for nutrient absorption and immune system support.
Glutamine Improves Gut Health
Glutamine Improves Brain Health
Due to the gut-brain connection, poor gut health can disrupt the balance of neurotransmitters, potentially leading to depression. Inflammation in the gut can affect neurotransmitter balance and overall brain health.L-glutamine can help protect neurological health by maintaining the integrity of the gut lining and reducing inflammation, thereby positively influencing the brain’s environment.
L-Glutamine for Eczema and Leaky Gut
Yes, l-glutamine shows much promise for healing eczema and a leaky gut.
Similarly, the Google search term 'l-glutamine for autoimmune', shows nearly 1 million results.
And, of course, 'l-glutamine for eczema', returns over 300,000 results.
So, clearly, a lot is being written about l-glutamine for eczema, l-glutamine for a leaky gut, and l-glutamine for other gastrointestinal problems.
L-glutamine is sometimes just called glutamine. But, what is this l-glutamine?
L-glutamine is one of the 20 amino acids already in your body.
A significant amount of l-glutamine comes from the foods we eat, and it can also be synthesized in the body. However, when your body is under stress, chances are it doesn’t have enough l-glutamine to satisfy your demand.
Stress, like a poor diet (and maybe the Standard American Diet), medications, trauma, post exercise recovery, and so on. As a matter of fact, when your body is stressed, it releases the hormone called cortisol into your bloodstream. It’s the high levels of this hormone, cortisol, that lowers the stores of l-glutamine.
Nearly every bodily function requires l-glutamine. It’s also the most active amino acid involved in many of metabolic processes.
L-glutamine helps to remove excess ammonia waste products from the body. It’s also important for digestion and for normal brain function. L-glutamine aids in the protection of the lining of the gastrointestinal tract.L-Glutamine for Leaky Gut
Your intestinal tract uses approximately 30 percent of your glutamine stores. It’s a key element in maintaining intestinal barrier functions and maintaining tight junctions between cells to produce a physical barrier.
Spend enough time reading through these search results and you might also see the term: secretory immunoglobulin A, or sIgA.
SlgA acts as the first line of defense. It helps protect against foreign substances, like bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites, and food particles from entering the body through a normally functioning digestive tract.
With low levels of sglA, your digestive tract is unable to fight these foreign substances from attacking the intestinal wall. The gut becomes inflamed and irritated. As a result, the gut wall becomes weakened and allows toxins or undigested food particles to enter the body.
Both l-glutamine and probiotics, along with a better diet, is means to help increase sglA levels and rebuild the intestinal mucosal surface. L-glutamine is the preferred fuel used by the gut lining repair and rebuild themselves and produce more of the intestinal mucous and sglA.
L-glutamine also supports your overall health in many other ways like helping to maintain and regulate blood glucose levels. More fodder for late night searches.L-Glutamine for Eczema Protocol (A Natural Alternative Treatment for Eczema)
My own anti-eczema l-glutamine protocol began with 2 grams, twice a day, an hour before breakfast and at bedtime. Based on studies below, like these, I concluded this level of l-glutamine probably wasn’t enough for an active case of eczema.
- To build a healthy number of intestinal epithelial cells, l-glutamine is critical.
- Dietary supplementation of glutamine found to be beneficial in maintenance of these epithelial cells.
After two months of supplementing at 2 grams, 4 times a day, I have gone down to 2 grams, 2 times a day, an hour before breakfast and at bedtime for maintenance.
If I have a day or two of less-than-optimal diet, I’ll bump up my l-glutamine for several days to help compensate.
Some studies have subjects taking much more l-glutamine than I did. Perhaps my own healing might have been quicker if I had increased the how much I was supplementing. Or, maybe there would have been no difference?

This is the brand of l-glutamine I purchase, Optimum Nutrition 1000 milligrams per capsule, 240 count. It has over 9,000 customer reviews, most of them 5-stars. Evidence of many happy customers! A search of customer reviews show that this product helps with gastrointestinal issues. Also, consider that an average of 1 person in 100 will take the time to leave a customer review.
You can see that these are about the size of a standard fish oil capsule.
![]() |
These are about the size of a standard fish oil supplement. |
Getting Enough Glutamine
Food sources of glutamine include animal products such as fish, beef, poultry, milk, yogurt, eggs, cheeses (ricotta and cottage cheese), and plant sources such as spinach, beets, lentils, beans, cabbage, and parsley, Ansari said.Diet alone may not be sufficient to meet the needs of individuals with compromised gut health or those experiencing high levels of physical stress, said Subhadra. In such cases, supplementation can be beneficial to ensure that the body receives an adequate supply of glutamine to support gut repair and overall health. However, he added that it’s important to assess individual needs and consult with a health care provider before starting any supplementation.
For general gut health maintenance, a common dosage is 5 grams taken once or twice daily, often on an empty stomach, to enhance absorption.
“Consistency is key, so it’s important to take L-glutamine regularly to achieve the desired benefits,” he said.
L-Glutamine adverse efffects and side effects warnings
People with certain medical conditions, such as liver or kidney disease, should exercise caution and consult their health care provider before taking L-glutamine because large doses can cause harm in critically ill patients. Additionally, those with a history of seizures or who are on medication that affects glutamate levels should avoid L-glutamine supplementation without professional guidance, as it might increase seizure severity.“
L-Glutamine and Cancer (Caution)
Thomas Seyfried’s research adds another metabolic pathway in cancer cells that Warburg did not observe: cancer cells also get a lot of energy from the fermentation of an amino acid called glutamine, which updated Warburg’s theory [source][source].The truth, Seyfried said, is that “They [cancer] cannot breathe … they can’t get energy through oxygen, they can only get energy from fermentation.” All cancers can survive without oxygen, but they “cannot live without sugar, glucose, and the amino acid glutamine.”
Cellular aerobic respiration mainly takes place in mitochondria. Mitochondria, which are responsible for respiration, are damaged and hollow in all major types of cancer. The cristae, the wrinkled and wavy structures in the mitochondrial structure, are cluttered and defective. The abnormality of mitochondrial structure will change the function of mitochondria, resulting in the inability of cells to obtain energy through oxidative metabolism. This changes the cell’s metabolism from relying primarily on oxidation to fermentation.
Seyfried further explained that the various abnormalities in cancer cells are caused by the loss of normal function of cell mitochondria due to various reasons (including carcinogens, radiation, pollution, inflammation, age, viruses, etc). A large number of reactive oxygen species (ROS) will be produced when mitochondria are damaged, further attacking and destroying the nucleus.
“The mutations that we see in cancer come as the result of damage from reactive oxygen species,” Seyfried said. “The mutations are an effect, they are not the cause of cancer.”
Furthermore, Seyfried also talked about a phenomenon, that is, cancers with myriad variants share a consistent metastatic process. First, individual cells become cancerous and form tumors; the tumor cells then spread through the blood vessels and circulatory system to other parts of the body, forming new tumors.
Why do all cancers have the same metastatic process? How does this relate to the theory that cancer is a metabolic disorder?
Seyfried said that the mitochondrial metabolic theory explains cancer metastasis better than the somatic mutation theory. After macrophages engulf and fuse with the defective proto-cancer cells, the normally functioning mitochondria are gradually replaced by dysfunctional mitochondria due to inflammation. As immune cells, macrophages have the ability to travel around the body. As a result, these cancer cells, which are fusions of proto-cancer cells and macrophages, spread throughout the body.
Seyfried believes the existing cancer treatment system is “broken.” He said once people understand the metabolic theory of cancer, treatments like chemotherapy and radiotherapy will be replaced by new treatments.
Based on the theory, Seyfried and his team developed the “press pulse therapy” [source] [source][source], which is a cocktail treatment consisting of the ketogenic diet, glutaminase inhibitor medicine, and stress management.
One single egg contains about 0.7 grams of glutamine. Therefore, if you were to get all of your glutamine from eggs, you would need to consume at least seven eggs. One egg yolk contains about 0.3 grams of glutamine and one egg white contains about 0.4 grams of glutamine.
Glutamic acid vs glutamine: What's the difference?
Glutamic acid and glutamine are both amino acids, but they have distinct differences: Glutamic acid is an amino acid that is among the free form glutamine within the building blocks of protein. It is also a component that makes glutamine what it actually is. Glutamine is derived from glutamic acid; it is glutamic acid that is attached to a mineral ion.
Role of Glutamine in Protection of Intestinal Epithelial Tight
Junctions
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4369670/
Intestinal epithelial cells: regulators of barrier function and immune
homeostasis
https://www.nature.com/articles/nri3608
Intestinal permeability – a new target for disease prevention and
therapy
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4253991/
Does L-Glutamine Heal A Leaky Gut?
https://fatiguetoflourish.com/l-glutamine-heal-leaky-gut/
Why L-Glutamine Is My Leaky Gut Superhero!
https://goodbyeleakygut.com/l-glutamine-leaky-gut/
The Skinny on Staying Thin: Glutamine and Other Weight Loss
Supplements
https://foreveryoung.perriconemd.com/the-skinny-on-staying-thin-glutamine-and-other-weight-loss-supplements.html
Glutamine-Induced Secretion of Intestinal Secretory Immunoglobulin A:
A Mechanistic Perspective
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/02e1/485fd23c947a31aedcae17d0ac0fabc1f376.pdf
Comments
Post a Comment