[Rhonda]: It's
helped me with gut, but
then there's this whole, like, conflict in my head around...cancer cells love it, but
the question is if I'm taking it orally, and I have some cancer cells, in my, I don't know,
my liver or something, then I guess you said liver is one that does.
it does use it, but, so the question is, is that harming me or is it helping me?
[Dom]: Should you take it or not?
Yeah, I get that question a lot.
For GI cancers and liver cancer, I would say do not supplement glutamine, and I would say
under most conditions...I always say in those states, I actually tried to look up the glutamine
content of food, and you might want to avoid it or minimize glutamine, high glutamine-containing
foods.
Otherwise, I wouldn't really pay too much attention.
Some patients really stress out about it but I think if you just keep your protein low
to moderate, or keep your protein at a level to ensure proper regeneration and just, kind
of, replenishment of your normal cells, and prevent protein deficiency, and being in a
state of ketosis will help with that to some extent, but glutamine is pretty low on...
[Rhonda]: The classical ketosis, right, where it's 10% protein?
[Dom]: Yeah, yeah, and I think that will lower your blood glutamine levels, just being on
a ketogenic diet will do that.
And then, you could further lower it by selecting protein food sources that are lower on the
end of, are glutamine.
I'm not for avoiding protein types of supplements, avoiding glutamine supplementation all together.
And you may be able to further suppress glutamine by taking a supplement that's like high branched-chain
amino acids, high essential amino acids.
So taking a supplement that is formulated in a way that, kind of, gives you essential
amino acids, excluding glutamate, of course.
Glutamine is not an essential amino acid.
It's conditionally essential.
But then you...I don't think you'll run the risk of being deficient in glutamine in any
way, but I would avoid, I would pay attention to it if you have a GI cancer or liver cancer,
and then if...
[Rhonda]: The liver, I didn't know, but yeah, GI was...
[Dom]: So if you have, say, for example, like, a brain tumor and you're taking a drug that
can impair systemically, you're taking something that impairs your GI function, and it may
be helpful to take a little bit of glutamine because I don't...I really don't think...the
gut's going to be very greedy when it comes to glutamine.
[Rhonda]: It's very greedy.
[Dom]: So I think just maybe even 5, 10 grams of glutamine to help repair your gut.
We know that if your gut permeability is impaired, that can wreak havoc in your body as far as
systemic inflammation.
So try to...and there's other ways to repair your gut, too, but I think glutamine may be
a factor in helping to ensure proper gut.
[Rhonda]: Yeah, there's definitely other ways.
I mean, I think that you know, like I was saying, fiber, good diet, and things like
that.
[Dom]: Exactly.
But glutamine has been used in oncology.
So, yeah, glutamine is for helping people with chemo combating the issues with chemo.
And then glutamine has almost been like a staple, you know...
[Rhonda]: So they give it to chemo patients, kind of...
[Dom]: Help them recover part of the immune system, too.
[Rhonda]: Because your gut regulates the Immune systems well.
[Dom]: Your gut is, like, what, 70%, 80% of your immune system, right?
So it's huge.
So we want to keep your gut as healthy as possible.
And there are many drugs out there that really impair gut mobil-, or...
[Rhonda]: And diets, too.
[Dom]: Yeah, and diets, too.