Talk:Glutamine

Note

I've modified this:

In people living with diseases that put long term strain on the immune system (like HIV), glutamine is burned at a higher rate. Glutamine is also used in the digestive process and -- if not supplemented -- can lead to wasting.

Glutamine may have something to do with cachexia, but the relationship between the two things is certainly not as simple as this implies. It would be nice to be able to quote a reference here. -- Someone else 02:52 Apr 12, 2003 (UTC)

Adverse effects

This article concentrates on adverse effects of glutamine consumption. However, it gives zero references. This article desperately needs some work in this area. In particular, someone who knows this stuff needs to firm up the documentation. I'm not a biochemist, so I don't know how much of this information is well-supported and how much is hearsay. Gwimpey 05:59, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)

OK, most of this page was a copyvio. I removed the offending material and put a link to the source Gwimpey 06:18, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)

Someone might want to add a reference to bipolar disorder and glutamine. I just tried it to help with ulcerative colitis and it caused a bipolar flare. A Google search of glutamine and bipolar disorder got instant hits. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dixon pete (talk • contribs) 16:15, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

From PNA/Biology

• Glutamine talks about all sorts of negative effects of the compound, but gives no references. Also, would be good to have information on biochemical role (it is one of the 20-odd amino acids that compose proteins). Gwimpey 06:03, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)

Rewrite

Puhh, pretty much of this small knowledge stuff in this article. Since i just finished my diploma thesis on the cellular glutamine metabolism, i guess to have a clue about this topic. I did only delete minor aspects and commented those while doing so. But i rearranged the article and grouped the nutrition part aside of the use. Furthermore, i added functions and listed the producing and consuming organs. I did not go too much into detail, because you could fill pages about glutamine metabolism alone. The collection of the as i call them "small knowledges" i grouped them under Examples for the usage of glutamine. Interesting further functions of glutamine are found in the role in the immune system, tumor metabolism and in the glutamine glutamate cycle of the CNS. But these areas are not presented structured up to now. Maybe i do that later. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Galahadin (talk • contribs) 13:59, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Since very little of relevance was left, I went ahead and rewrote the article. It could still use more help (as could a lot of the other amino acid articles-- I may get around to this). In particular, I removed this:

It is converted into the excitotoxin glutamate within neurons. Glutamine is then transported to the neuron and by the enzyme glutaminase, it is converted to glutamate--the potential excitotoxin. Unless it accumulates outside the brain cell it is harmless.

While arguably true, this tends to create the impression that glutamine is notable as a neurotoxin, which is false. Molybdenumblue 23:52, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

complete boll*x

I suspect a lot of this article is very inaccurate. It can cure cancer? Not remotely likely. We can say believers in it believe that, but that's all we can say, for WP:NPOV. Sticky Parkin

This is all bullshit. Taken as a suppository? absorbed in the lower intestine? precursor for DNA? DNA is made out of nucleotides, NOT amino acids, and nothing is absorbed in the colon except for water...wtf. delete this page...its moe accurate as a stub stating its an amino acid. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.69.181.111 (talk) 08:03, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Glutamine is actually a common amine donor group and is involved on the synthesis of several compounds such as the nucleotides and therefore DNA —Preceding unsigned comment added by 18.114.7.62 (talk) 20:09, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

The latest research is that glutamine is actually fuel for cancer cells. But previous comments were from 17 years ago. ~2026-38062-74 (talk) 20:50, 1 September 2026 (UTC)

Most abundant amino acid in the human body?

The wikipedia-article presently (as of August 2025) makes two statements:

1) Glutamine is the most abundant amino acid in the human blood stream.

2) Glutamine is the most abundant amino acid in the human body.

I have read elsewhere that lead me to believe that 1) is probably correct; either way we need good or more sources.

However had, specifically in regards to 2), I have conflicting sources. For instance, the aminoacid Leucine has the one letter abbreviation L. The amino acid Lysine has the abbreviation K instead. The explanation for this was that when Margaret Oakley Dayhoff did this table, her data showed that Leucine is more commonly found in humans than Lysine, hence the one-letter abbreviation L. Now I may be incorrect here, but right now the wikipedia article only links to this as source:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002231662215995X?via%3Dihub

This article only shows the amino acids in the blood, though. How can it be assumed that this is the same composition in the whole body?

I would thus recommend that we will add more sources either way, and also add a table with the specific percentage ratios and WHERE in the human body this can be found. Right now I think wikipedia is not quite clear in this regard; just claiming that Glutamine is also in the human body the most prevalent, without any table and only one source, is not a good idea IMO. That should be remedied quickly. 2A02:8388:1643:D680:9833:F0F0:D743:4AC9 (talk) 18:58, 4 August 2025 (UTC)

Gluatamine and cancer cell growth

Please could an expert or interested party add the latest research of glutamine as fuel for cancer cells. I am not an expert in this. Thank you. ~2026-38062-74 (talk) 20:48, 1 September 2026 (UTC)