Abstract
Glutamine represents the principal metabolicsubstrate for all rapidly proliferating cells. Sincepart of the glutamine efficacy could be related toimmunoregulating properties, we assessed the effects of orally administered glutamine on seruminterleukin-2 (IL-2) levels and intestinal T-cellpopulations in 48 athymic (nude) mice. Twenty-four micereceived a standard diet enriched by glutamine (added to drinking water at a 4% concentration), whilethe other 24 served as the control group and receivedthe same diet without glutamine. In glutaminefedanimals, we observed a marked increase in IL-2concentrations after 10 days of treatment in comparison withcontrol group and a modest but significant increase inintestinal T-cell counts. These results suggest thatoral glutamine is able to exert local and systemic immunostimulating activity that could be ofrelevance in the prevention of gut integrity and immunedefense loss associated, for example, with trauma,surgery, and starvation.
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Gismondo, M., Drago, L., Fassina, M.C. et al. Immunostimulating Effect of Oral Glutamine. Dig Dis Sci 43, 1752–1754 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1018883603429
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1018883603429