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28.06.2021

This category of athletes benefits from supplementation with 6 grams of glutamine per day

Glutamine is an outdated sports supplement that we know has little to offer. Yes right? However, Spanish scientists think otherwise. They suspect that athletes who make a lot of eccentric movements may respond positively to glutamine supplementation.

Glutamine
Currently, most scientists assume that glutamine is not an effective supplement for athletes. [Clin Nutr. 2019 Jun;38(3):1076-1091.] Athletes who use glutamine do not get stronger or more muscular, and even the theory that glutamine supplementation reduces the chance of infection with a nasty virus or bacteria has been dispelled.

Anyway, it could just be that a specific type of athlete does benefit from extra glutamine. Or that glutamine only works in a specific dose, not too low and of course not too high.

Study
Spanish sports scientists published a human study in Nutrients in which they looked at the effect of a daily dose of 6 grams of glutamine in basketball players. In their sport, the load of eccentric movements is considerable.

For 20 days, the researchers gave 12 athletes who played at national and European level a daily supplement. On another occasion, subjects were given a placebo for 20 days.

The trial took place during the competition season. The physical load on the athletes was therefore quite large.

Results
At the end of the supplementation period, the concentrations of creatine kinase [CK] and myoglobin [Mb] in the players' blood had decreased. This suggests that their muscles had suffered less damage.

In the 1990s, when glutamine was still a very popular supplement, websites and fitness magazines still reported that glutamine lowered the concentration of cortisol. The Spaniards did not find this effect. They did discover that supplementation with glutamine lowered the concentration of ACTH in the blood of the athletes. ACTH stimulates the release of cortisol by the adrenal glands.

Click on the figure below for a larger version.

Finally, supplementation with glutamine also changed the composition of the blood cells. The proportion of lymphocytes decreased. This could possibly mean that the athletes had less problems with infections during their supplementation period.

Conclusions
"In conclusion, the data presented show that glutamine supplementation results in a decrease of circulating muscle damage markers accompanied by an adequate balance between the response of the catabolic and anabolic hormones and the stability of leucocyte cell numbers", write the researchers.

"We hypothesize that the control of these specific parameters could help to prevent the inflammation and stress provoked by highly strenuous exercise. From a practical point of view, glutamine supplementation could help in recovery after intense and demanding eccentric exercises that produce muscle damage with a high risk of lesions."

Source:
Nutrients 2021, 13, 2073.

More:
Glutamine enhances muscle strengthening effect of leucine 27.06.2018
Supplementation with glutamine, cystine, glycine and selenium supplementation prevents age-related muscle breakdown 05.10.2015
Mixture of glutamine and BCAAs makes training less tiring 07.08.2011
BCAAs and glutamine still useful even if you already use protein supplements 18.02.2011

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