If you’re shopping for supplements, one that has glutamine amino acid might catch your eye. Considering many women use glutamine for weight loss, you may be wondering if this dietary addition is right for you. Learn how glutamine works — and get your doctor’s okay — before you buy.
Glutamine is one of many amino acids — the building blocks of protein — that your body uses for nearly every single process that keeps you moving each day. Some of these processes can affect your waist size, like protein synthesis — the key to building lean, calorie-torching muscle — and metabolic regulation. Good news: Your body constantly produces a large amount of this essential amino acid thanks to your skeletal muscle. But if you want to shed a few pounds, you might be thinking about consuming even more glutamine for weight loss.
Since your body produces the glutamine amino acid naturally, it’s widely considered safe, and studies have found promising results after testing the healthy upper limits of supplementation. There has been very little indication of adverse side effects from taking glutamine, according to a 2001 survey that looked at four different studies of people supplementing with it. One of the studies was even conducted on infants to make sure the supplement was safe for the little ones — and it was.
If you’re looking for a leg up on whittling your waist, consider glutamine an easy aid after you get your health practitioner’s OK. In a small Italian study, obese and overweight women who took glutamine dropped more pounds without dieting than women who took another supplement with the same amount of protein but no glutamine. After four weeks, both groups reverted back to their old diets. When there was no trace of the lingering glutamine, they were switched to the non-glutamine supplement. Both groups showed the slimming effects only when taking glutamine — and this was without changing their diet or workout habits. “It was a significant reduction of body weight,” said lead author Alessandro Laviano, MD. read more at womansworld.com
