Dr. Amy Nett: OK, so you actually do want glutamine to be absorbed. Glutamine is a fuel. It’s a really important fuel and a really important source of nitrogen for the cells, particularly the small intestinal cells, and it helps play a role in maintaining the mucosal cell integrity and gut barrier function. Some of the studies have suggested that glutamine can potentially help heal gut barrier integrity, so it might help heal leaky gut, and this is whether it’s used directly as glutamine or as whey protein, but one of the ways we think that it improves gut barrier function or decreases leaky gut is that it increases the claudin-1 expression in the colonic mucosa. Remember that claudin-1 is one of the proteins in the tight junctions, so in order to increase claudin-1, you actually need absorption because what you’re doing is you’re effecting that change from a cellular level. It’s not that glutamine is coating the gut. It’s that glutamine is actually taken up into the cells and is changing the expression of tight junction proteins. In order to effect change on the tight junction proteins, you actually do need to have glutamine absorption. And again, one of the other major roles of glutamine is it’s a fuel source. It’s an important source of nitrogen and fuel for the small intestinal cells, so again, if it’s going to act as a fuel source, it needs to be absorbed by the cells, so you actually do want absorption of glutamine. That’s how it helps to heal the gut barrier.
I know that’s a much more expensive product, unfortunately, and as Chris mentioned, we don’t universally see a lot of benefit from using glutamine, so I’m a little bit mixed in terms of how helpful this is, but some of my patients do really feel like glutamine is helpful for them. If patients feels like normal L-glutamine is helping, don’t tell them that it’s not and don’t switch them over to the GlutImmune brand. But if someone is really struggling with issues related to leaky gut and intestinal permeability, then I probably would go with the GlutImmune brand because it is important to have the increased absorption because that’s where you’re really going to see the benefit. Great question, and hopefully that makes sense.