Glutamine Effect on The Body's pH Levels

It is important that your body keep all its systems in balance. Regulating the pH of the blood by the synthesis and breakdown of glutamine is one of the ways your body does this. Glutamine also has many other important roles in the body, and there is some evidence to support its potential use in conjunction with certain chemotherapies used to treat cancer.

Facts

• Glutamine is one of the most important amino acids in the body. Although the body may produce enough glutamine, sometimes it does not, and it is necessary to obtain glutamine by supplementation. If your diet is rich in beef or lean meats and fish, beans and/or dairy products, and you have not been under extreme physical or emotional stress, your body will likely produce sufficient glutamine. If you wish, supplements are available.

Function

• Glutamine helps you have a healthy digestive tract and a strong immune system. Elite or endurance athletes may use it to recover more quickly from hard workouts and competition in which they have overused their muscles. This overuse depletes the store of glutamine and can lead to infection as the result of a weakened immune system if the stores are not replenished.

Blood pH

• Another important role of glutamine is to help the body maintain the correct pH balance. pH measures acidity and alkalinity, and maintaining a proper, slightly alkaline balance between 7.36 to 7.44 is vitally important for proper bodily function. If your blood becomes too acidic, it can result in fatigue, muscle aches, organ damage and possibly death.

How Glutamine Regulates pH

• If your blood becomes too acidic, your body will begin to break down glutamine. Ammonia levels will increase, thereby increasing your blood pH. Glutamine uses the ammonia to make other amino acids, sugar and glutathione, an antioxidant that is important to liver health. Conversely, if you have too much ammonia in your system, your pH will be too high and your body will work to restore it by using that ammonia to make glutamine.

Considerations

• If you do buy glutamine supplements, also known as L-glutamine, you should keep them someplace cool and dry. Also, do not add them to coffee or tea or any hot beverage because heat will render them ineffective.

Potential

• There is some research that suggests that glutamine might reduce the side effects of certain chemotherapy drugs and might also increase their effectiveness. It may also help prevent the nerve damage associated with some drugs used to treat breast cancer. Unfortunately, there is some evidence that glutamine might actually increase the growth of tumors, so more research is needed before it is recommended with regard to cancer treatment.

Warning

• You should always talk to your doctor before taking any supplements to make sure they will not interact badly with or undermine the effectiveness of any medications you take. If you have kidney or liver disease, you should not supplement with glutamine.