Glutamine supplementation to critically ill patients?

Glutamine supplementation to critically ill patients?

Enteral glutamine supplementation in critically ill patients

In Critical Care recently, we read with great interest the systematic review and meta-analysis by van Zanten and colleagues, who compared enteral glutamine with control in critically ill patients in terms of clinical outcomes [1]. We enthusiastically congratulate and applaud them for their groundbreaking work on this topic. However, some issues in their study should be noted and further discuss...

Glutamine supplementation for critically ill adults.

BACKGROUND Glutamine is a non-essential amino acid which is abundant in the healthy human body. There are studies reporting that plasma glutamine levels are reduced in patients with critical illness or following major surgery, suggesting that glutamine may be a conditionally essential amino acid in situations of extreme stress. In the past decade, several clinical trials examining the effects o...

Effects of glutamine supplementation, GH, and IGF-I on glutamine metabolism in critically ill patients.

During critical illness glutamine deficiency may develop. Glutamine supplementation can restore plasma concentration to normal, but the effect on glutamine metabolism is unknown. The use of growth hormone (GH) and insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I) to prevent protein catabolism in these patients may exacerbate the glutamine deficiency. We have investigated, in critically ill patients, the eff...

Endogenous glutamine production in critically ill patients: the effect of exogenous glutamine supplementation

INTRODUCTION Glutamine rate of appearance (Ra) may be used as an estimate of endogenous glutamine production. Recently a technique employing a bolus injection of isotopically labeled glutamine was introduced, with the potential to allow for multiple assessments of the glutamine Ra over time in critically ill patients, who may not be as metabolically stable as healthy individuals. Here the techn...