How to take it correctly?

Glutamine can be taken during, shortly before or after training. This can be explained by the effects of glutamine on the human body. On the one hand, glutamine ensures that water is bound in the muscle cells.

As a result, the muscle cell swells and tends to form more muscle fibers. This is the effect during training. After training, glutamine serves to regenerate the body.

It ensures that the glycogen stores are replenished faster than normal. In addition, glutamine counteracts muscle breakdown by providing the body with energy from free amino acids. This means that the body no longer needs to break down muscles to provide amino acids.

Glutamine can be administered in the form of capsules or powder. The recommended dosage is usually five grams per day. However, this can be increased, since toxic damage only occurs in much higher doses.

What are the possible side effects?

Side effects caused by taking glutamine are extremely rare because it requires a very large amount or a specific intolerance. An overdose is therefore virtually only possible through explicit supplementation. A toxicity of Glutamin could be determined in studies only starting from values beyond 10 gram per kilogram body weight.

However, these are values that are probably never reached in real life. The side effects of overdose (which are not yet toxic) include tingling and shaking of the hands, discomfort with vomiting and possibly diarrhoea and headaches. All these symptoms can of course also occur with other diseases, but in combination with high glutamine consumption they should be an indication for a reduction of the daily intake.

Evaluation

As shown above, the many positive effects of glutamine are proven by various studies. These are mainly the interesting effects of increased muscle growth and increased fat loss. A problem arises from the fact that there are also studies that could not represent the positive effects of glutamine, or have shown that the desired effects of glutamine do not exist.

Even though glutamine certainly accelerates and strengthens muscle growth, these effects have only been proven for the body’s own glutamine. It is to be discussed, however, whether the effects mentioned can also be transferred to externally supplied, artificial glutamine. The lack of long-term studies is a problem here that should be considered before taking glutamine containing preparations. In general, the athlete who supplements his training program with supplements should be aware that these products are only an addition. No supplement can replace or make superfluous a healthy and varied diet.For athletes, the training plan is still in the foreground, muscles are built up through disciplined and consistent exercise, supplements are only a possibly useful supplement.