Glutamine - friend or foe?

Glutamine was at the core of the old Grouppe Kurosawa anti-cancer protocol. Steve Martin had picked up on laboratory evidence that glutamine worked to decrease the anti-oxidant defences of tumour cells while increasing the anti-oxidant defences of normal cells (specifically it changed the levels of glutathione in tumour cells versus non-tumour cells). He suggested that people take high levels of oral gultamine powder as part of h is protocol. While it has been used clinically to try and stop sores in the mouths and stomachs of cancer patients taking chemotherapy, it's use has always been quite controversial.

The problem is that glutamine is also one of the key nutrients that cancer cells depend on - possibly second only to glucose. The fear has been that taking glutamine supplements would end up feeding the tumours rather than helping destroy the tumours. The evidence has never been that clear, and in trials that have looked at using glutamine to fight chemotherapy side effects, the focus has been on that and not on whether it makes a difference to long term survival.

In rats at least, the work of Professor Klimberg and her co-workers has repeatedly shown positive results, including when glutamine is used with chemotherapy. To date, however, there have been no studies that have looked at using glutamine specifically as anti-cancer agent - with and without other treatments.

In the meantime, we can read of another glutamine clinical trial - this time looking specifically at whether it can target peripheral neuropathy (another common chemo side effect) in multiple melanoma patients:

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-09-over-the-counter-drug-effect-chemo-side.html

Also of interest is the on-going activity around low dose naltrexone. You can read more about it...

http://www.anticancer.org.uk/2011/09/ldn-aware-voices-dvd.html

and here:

http://www.ldnresearchtrust.org/