Endurance Sports Supplement Series: Glutamine

As mentioned in an earlier post, engineering the perfect endurance sorts supplement requires considering all of the body’s 7 critical systems. In this series, we will take a look at the key ingredients within 7Systems Endurance Sports Supplement that support each of the 7 critical systems.

The first system is the muscular system. A good endurance sports supplement will support the muscular system by including glutamine to help combat muscular breakdown caused by endurance activities and support the immune system during periods of trauma or stress.

What is glutamine?

Glutamine is the most commonly occurring, non-essential amino acid in the human body.

In the body glutamine is found circulating in the blood as well as stored in the skeletal muscles. Glutamine becomes conditionally essential (requiring intake from food or supplements) in states of stress like heavy training, illness or injury.

What does glutamine support?

Glutamine’s ability to preserve skeletal muscle mass in times of stress is perhaps its best known quality. There is essential for the prevention of muscle wasting. Intense exercise training results in a well-described drop in plasma glutamine levels.

Chronically low glutamine levels have been implicated as a possible contributing factor in athletic overtraining syndrome as well as the transient immuno-suppression and increased risk of infections that typically affects competitive athletes during intense training and competition.

How does glutamine work?

Just like the multi-talented triathlete, glutamine is a multi-faceted supplement.

Glutamine helps regulate muscle mass, is involved in immune system support, affects the synthesis of glucose and may even improve insulin metabolism. At the molecular level, glutamine exerts its effect by preventing the loss of a specific protein called myosin heavy chain (MHC). The MHC protein determines the contractile properties of a muscle fiber. The fast form of MHC results in fast twitch fibers and the slow version of MHC results in slow twitch fibers. Retention of this critical protein is closely linked to glutamine abundance thus strengthening the support for glutamine supplementation.

Whole food sources of glutamine

Dietary sources of glutamine include beef, chicken, fish, eggs, milk, yoghurt, certain cheeses, dairy products, cabbage, beets, beans, spinach, and parsley. Small amounts of free glutamine are also found in vegetable juices and fermented foods, such as miso.