Glutamine: What Is It, What Does It Do, and Why Should You Use It?
What Is Glutamine? Glutamine is one of the 20 naturally occurring essential amino acids found in dietary proteins. It’s found in high levels in dietary meats, eggs, and both whey and casein protein, and is also the most abundant amino acid found in human muscle tissue and plasma. Glutamine in created in the body by breaking down certain non-essential amino acids and then binds with other nitrogen containing molecules, where it then shuttles nitrogen between different tissues in the body so that the body can grow and repair. About 70 percent of the body’s own glutamine production happens in the skeletal muscle where it will then travel to the most prominent sites of glutamine usage such as the small intestine, kidneys, and white blood cells. What Does Glutamine Do? Glutamine’s key role is in regulating protein synthesis and breakdown. Although glutamine does a load of other things as well, such as water transportation, glucose formation, and healthy immune function, but its role in protein synthesis and breakdown is the reason it has been supplemented by weightlifters, bodybuilders, and a large percentage of other athletes. Our kidneys are where a majority of the glutamine in our body is used in order to maintain the body’s proper acid-base balance. As the body’s acid level in the [...]