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glutamine

Glutamine for blood sugar stability, calming and gut healing

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Glutamine powder by DFH: 3/4 of a teaspoon = 3g, so 1/6 of a teaspoon = 500mg
Glutamine powder by DFH: 3/4 of a teaspoon = 3g, so 1/6 of a teaspoon = 500mg

If you’ve been following me for awhile, worked with me, read my book The Antianxiety Food Solution, or listened in on The Anxiety Summit, you’ll be aware that I use glutamine with clients to help with blood sugar control while we’re figuring out diet/breakfast/adrenal health and the carbohydrate/sugar cravings associated with low blood sugar. Opened on to the tongue or taken in powder form glutamine is super-effective for stopping that intense desire for something sweet if it’s related to low blood sugar.

Integrative psychiatrist Dr. Hyla Cass and Julia Ross, MA both recommend glutamine for addiction and carb cravings, as well as for blood sugar control. During a past Anxiety Summit, Dr. Cass shared how to break free of addictions. And Julia Ross, a pioneer in the use of individual amino acids talked about glutamine and other amino acids for eliminating anxiety.

My clients also find benefits as far as healing the leaky gut and glutamine is recommended by many respected integrative practitioners for this purpose: Dr. Josh Axe, Dr. Amy Myers, author of The Autoimmune Solution , and Dr. David Perlmutter, author Grain Brain during his interview with Dr Tom O’ Bryan on The Gluten Summit.  Steven Wright also writes about leaky gut and glutamine on the SCD lifestyle blog, as does fermentationist Summer Bock.

With all these benefits, my clients love this amino acid!

Here is very encouraging feedback from one of the participants in the Amazing Aminos for Anxiety group program:

I started the glutamine trial low and slow. I have been taking 500mg three times a day AM AFT & BED for the past 4 days. I am celiac and have irritable bowel as well. The 2-3x a day diarrhea I have been experiencing has completely stopped! Blood sugar feels stable – not hungry and not craving. Psychologically, I’m feeling more resilient i.e., calmer and more positive on a daily basis. I am surprised that glutamine has helped so much 🙂  My gut is healing and my mental health has improved markedly through this trial.

She confirmed that adding the glutamine was the only change she made. She is already gluten-free and her diet doesn’t include any grains, legumes or lactose etc. She also avoids other foods to which she has had reactions.

I was so thrilled with these fabulous results and this was my feedback:

These are fabulous results – so happy for you! If you feel you could get added benefits i.e. if these symptoms (low blood sugar, hunger, craving, resilience) are not all 0s (with 10 being the worst on a scale of 1 to 10) then I’d consider bumping up the glutamine to 1000mg 3 x day to see if you get added benefits. If you don’t see added benefits then you can go back down.

It’s very common to get good results like this so I’d like to share another example. I met Nicole at the NTA conference and she shared how she suffers from low blood sugar issues:

I get irritable, I get shaky and I get to the point that if I don’t get food NOW I think I’m going to hurt something!

She did a trial of 500mg glutamine and in under 5 minutes she went from that frantic feeling to a very calm feeling:

I’m ok. I feel happy, I feel calm, I feel I can make it longer without needing food right away. I’m impressed at how well that worked for me.

You can read more about low blood sugar and watch Nicole’s video feedback here.

Of course there is research supporting the many benefits that glutamine has for gut health. Here are some excerpts from the abstract of a 2015 paper titled: Glutamine and intestinal barrier function.

glutamine has been reported to enhance intestinal and whole-body growth, to promote enterocyte proliferation and survival, and to regulate intestinal barrier function in injury, infection, weaning stress, and other catabolic conditions

glutamine stimulates growth of the small intestinal mucosa in young animals and also enhances ion transport by the gut in neonates and adults

as a functional amino acid with multiple key physiological roles, glutamine holds great promise in protecting the gut from atrophy and injury under various stress conditions in mammals and other animals.

And this 2015 paper titled: Oral supplementation with L-glutamine alters gut microbiota of obese and overweight adults found that adults supplemented with 30g of glutamine a day for just 14 days had a change in gut bacteria:

Oral supplementation with [glutamine], for a short time, altered the composition of the gut microbiota in overweight and obese humans reducing the Firmicutes to Bacteroidetes ratio, which resembled weight loss programs already seen in the literature.

In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial that was conducted in children aged two months to nine years from the urban shanty compound community of Fortaleza, Brazil, it was found that:

Glutamine and all combined nutrients (glutamine, vitamin A, and zinc) improved the intestinal barrier function in these children

When it comes to cravings, addiction and appetite we have this research supporting the use of glutamine:

I do want to end by saying there are some possible concerns with cancer supplementation and be sure to check with your oncologist if you are currently undergoing treatment. I write about these concerns here – Glutamine supplementation: cancer concerns and benefits.

Have you successfully used glutamine for helping with low blood sugar control, reducing carb or other cravings/addictions, and healing your leaky gut?

 

The Anxiety Summit – Targeted individual amino acids for eliminating anxiety: practical applications

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Host of the Anxiety Summit, Trudy Scott, Food Mood Expert and Nutritionist, author of The Antianxiety Food Solution. was interviewed by Dr Lauren Noel, host of Dr Lo radio.

Targeted individual amino acids for eliminating anxiety: practical applications

  • Glutamine: how it’s calming and helps with blood sugar balancing
  • GABA: how it eases physical tension
  • Tryptophan: how it eases anxiety in the head/busy ruminations (and when not to use 5-HTP)
  • DPA and tyrosine: how they help you quit the comfort-eating and coffee
  • Precautions when using individual amino acids
  • Factors that make them more effective and factors that make them less effective

Here are some snippets from our interview:

You’ll hear some practitioners say GABA molecules are too large to cross the blood brain barrier so GABA won’t work or if it does work you must have a leaky blood brain barrier

Some practitioners are talking about and using a “test” for leaky brain called the GABA Challenge which recommends taking1000- 2000 mg of GABA at night. If the blood brain barrier is intact, you supposedly won’t feel any effect from the GABA. If you do feel a change (drowsiness /feeling drunk or even jittery) then you will need to repair your leaky blood brain barrier.

I have not used the GABA Challenge and only recently learned about it but I am concerned with the very high dose of 2000mg of GABA. That is a lot of GABA for most people and I would expect severe drowsiness for most people or even a reverse effect. I find 125mg (in GABA Calm) is a good starting dose for my anxious clients.

I have also seen research indicating that GABA’s relaxing effect may be due to peripheral effects rather than the effect on/in the brain

Here are some of the papers about there being GABA-receptors in peripheral tissues (these are older papers and I’d love to see some newer research).

  • “GABA and its receptors are found in a wide range of peripheral tissues, including parts of the peripheral nervous system, endocrine, and non-neural tissues such as smooth muscle and the female reproductive system” (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2162457)
  • “GABA is widely distributed in endocrine tissues including the pituitary, pancreas, adrenal glands, uterus, ovaries, placenta and testis” (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16338174)

Here is the research on oral GABA being a natural relaxant for 13 subjects who crossed a suspended bridge as a stressful stimulus

GABA could work effectively as a natural relaxant and its effects could be seen within 1 hour of its administration to induce relaxation and diminish anxiety.

Here is the research on the stress-reducing effect of chocolate enriched with gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) in humans

the participants performed an arithmetic task and those that were given the GABA choc made a quick recovery to the normal state from the stressful state.

It has been reported that ordinary doses of GABA by oral ingestion do not permeate the blood brain barrier. Therefore, it has been considered that GABA may act on the peripheral nervous system of the digestive organs and not the central nervous system

Here is the blog post that discusses why I don’t use urinary neurotransmitter testing.
There are some precautions to be aware of when taking supplemental amino acids. Here are the Amino Acid Precautions.

Meme Grant shared her success story with the amazing amino acids (and the pyroluria protocol) in season 1. She had anxiety, had panic attacks, didn’t enjoy speaking in public, had insomnia and was an emotional eater.

  • glutamine allowed her to walk past the gluten and dairy free junk foods
  • tyrosine helped her flutterby mind, gave her energy, focus and a desire to do things again
  • DPA stopped her comfort eating for too much of the “healthy” sweeteners
  • Tryptophan stopped her mind talk, got her sleeping through the night for the first time in 11 years and helped reduce the frequency of her panic attacks
  • GABA was the best amino acid and how the panic attacks disappeared
  • zinc, vitamin B6 and evening primrose oil helped her pyroluria symptoms

Enjoy the bonus audio of my interview with Meme. You’ll be able to hear first-hand from someone who experienced amazing results.

Here is a video of Nicole trying some glutamine for low blood sugar

The questionnaires are also on the blog – amino acid questionnaire and pyroluria questionnaire.  Both have many comments that are invaluable.

If you are not already registered for the Anxiety Summit you can get live access to the speakers of the day here www.theAnxietySummit.com

Glutamine for low blood sugar and calming effects

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Nicole is an NTP (Nutritional Therapy Practitioner) and fire-fighter paramedic and has problems with blood sugar control. Diabetes runs in her family. We met at the recent 2013 NTA (Nutritional Therapy Association conference) where I had a booth to promote my services and book The Antianxiety Food Solution. I also presented on the Role of Inflammation in Anxiety, Stress and Depression – which covered amongst other factors, the amino acids.

Nicole came by my booth after my presentation and she wanted to try the glutamine because of low blood sugar symptoms. The results she experienced were great!

You can watch this video to hear how powerful glutamine was for Nicole – she saw results in around 5 minutes. I really like to get testimonials like this because when I talk about the profound and quick effects of the amazing amino acids it almost sounds too good to be true! But in this case (and the majority of cases), it really is true!

Nicole says “I get irritable, I get shaky and I get to the point that if I don’t get food NOW I think I’m going to hurt something!”

She tried the glutamine and in under 5 minutes she went from that feeling to: “I’m ok. I feel happy, I feel calm, I feel I can make it longer without needing food right away.”

She finished up by saying “I’m impressed at how well that worked for me” and she plans to share the benefits of this amino acid with her clients who may have blood sugar issues and the associated symptoms of shakiness between meals, irritability, a frantic need for something to eat and often an intense desire for something sweet.

Signs of low blood sugar include:

  • Irritability, agitation, nervousness
  • Shaky between meals or when you skip a meal
  • Poor memory, focus and fatigue
  • Intense sweet craving at various times of the day
  • Feeling stressed & overwhelmed
  • Waking in the night (low blood sugar is one of many causes of insomnia)

When you have stable blood sugar, you will feel grounded, experience less overwhelm and stress and have no cravings – if your cravings are blood sugar related. Cravings can also be due to low serotonin, low endorphins, low catecholamines and low GABA, and even as a result of candida or yeast overgrowth. For many of my clients it may even be a combination of the above.

Naturally, making food changes can help a great deal as you can read in this blog post on low blood sugar and anxiety.