There are many health benefits of L-Glutamine, but how do you know if it is right for you? First, we will learn more about this powerful supplement.
What is L-Glutamine?
L-Glutamine is a conditional essential amino acid. Meaning that amino acids are the basic building blocks of proteins and are the smallest units of proteins. In other words, your muscles are made up of amino acids.
What does Conditional Mean?
Conditional amino acids ARE produced in your body.
What does Essential Mean?
Essential amino acids CANNOT be produced in your body. So these must be obtained from food sources.
So this means, L-Glutamine is both! While your body can produce this amino acid, most often your body requires more than is be produced. When this happens, you would need to take in what you need from food or supplements.
What are the benefits L-Glutamine?
These are the top five benefits to supplementing with L-Glutamine:
- Promotes muscle growth and prevent muscle wasting
- Improve athletic performance and recovery
- Boost metabolism
- Improve gastrointestinal health
- Combats sugar cravings
Muscle Growth and Muscle Wasting
One key benefit of L-Glutamine is promoting muscle growth and preventing muscle wasting. As the basic building block of protein, glutamine supports muscle development. Research shows that L-Glutamine is used in protein synthesis within cells. So that taking glutamine supplements can help gain muscles and improve exercise performance. During an intense workout, as your body is stressed, your muscles require additional L-glutamine. In most cases, the requirement is more than that what your body has received from the foods you eat.
Muscle wasting is the loss or atrophy of your muscle mass. While there are many causes of muscle wasting, if the body is using more glutamine during intense exercise than it has access to, muscle wasting can occur. This means that taking L-glutamine is likely to prevent muscle wasting.
Athletic Performance and Recovery
Another benefit of L-Glutamine is improving athletic performance and recovery. Research has shown that athletes can improve athletic performance by supplementing with L-glutamine. During an intense training session or game, you may experience a 40% decline in the amount of glutamine in your body. When glutamine levels decline, so does your energy. Regular supplementation of L-Glutamine will increase your energy levels, leading to better performance. L-Glutamine might also help with recovery after an intense training sessions. This can mean the need for less rest and fewer breaks. A recent study, published but the National Library of Medicine, concluded that those who supplemented with L-Glutamine experienced less muscle soreness.
Boost Metabolism
Boosting your metabolism is another benefit of L-Glutamine. Research indicates L-Glutamine boosts metabolism by increasing the human growth hormone (HGH) secreted by your body. This increase in HGH leads to an increase in the metabolic rate. This is the rate at which your body burns calories even during rest.
Another way that L-glutamine works to increase your metabolic rate is by contributing to protein synthesis. This is the creation and development of lean mass. The more lean mass your body has, the more your body can burn fat for fuel. This is achieved by suppressing insulin levels and helping your body stabilize glucose levels in the blood stream.
Improve Gastrointestinal Health
Research indicates that improving gut health is another benefit of L-glutamine. Specifically, L-Glutamine supports the digestive system and improves overall digestive health. The cells in your gut regenerate faster. Thus allowing for the gut lining to be restored. By healing and protecting the gut lining, overall inflammation is decreased.
Many digestive conditions benefit from supplementing with l-glutamine. These conditions include:
- irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)
- an inflammatory bowel disease like Crohn’s disease
- ulcerative colitis
- diverticulosis
- diverticulitis
- leaky gut
Combat Sugar Craving
Last, but certainly not least, fighting sugar cravings! Glutamine assists in regulating your body’s metabolism and stabilizing blood glucose levels. Most sugar cravings raise up when the body is unable to balance the sugar levels in the blood.
To learn more, Dr. Mary D. Daley reported in an article to Livestrong how supplementing with L-glutamine plays a crucial role in how the pancreas releases insulin into the bloodstream.
In Closing
To sum up, L-Glutamine is a conditional essential amino acid providing many health benefits. While it can be obtained through your diet, you may not be getting enough.
There are many brands of l-Glutamine on the market. It also comes in capsule and powder form. Dr. Cohen founded Metabolic Nutrition over 30 years ago, and they provide pharmaceutical grade supplements.
Physiques Gym sells and recommends Metabolic Nutrition L-Glutamine. To learn more about Physiques Gym, you can Contact Us through our website.
Take your health and fitness to the next level! Contact Physiques Gym to schedule an assessment. Our coaches will guide you to become your best self, mentally and physically stronger and more disciplined. Contact us by email, info@physiquesgym.net or call (602)953-1111, or text (602)741-6339.
Author: Cara Barnes
Physiques gym Personal Trainer and Fitness Coach