Effects of glutamine in critical illness

Under normal physiological conditions, glutamine is synthesized in large amounts by the human body and is considered nonessential. It has been hypothesized that glutamine may become a conditionally essential amino acid in patients with catabolic disease. The objective of this study is to investigate the prognostic effect of glutamine.

For this study, we selected 48 patients from the intensive care unit. Group I consisted of 33 patients whose treatment included glutamine. We placed the remaining 15 patients in group II, and they did not receive glutamine in their treatment. We retrospectively investigated treatment time, leucocyte levels and outcome. We carried out the study between January 2002 and January 2003 in Konya Governmental Hospital, Turkey.

The average duration of hospital stay in the glutamine group was 8 +/- 1.2 days, 58% of them leaving hospital with surrogate. However, in the group whose treatment did not include glutamine, 42% of them left the hospital surrogate, their average hospital stay being 12 +/- 3 days. In the group receiving glutamine in the treatment, there was a prominent decrease in leukocyte levels compared to the other group, and hospitalization times were shorter but there was no statistically significant difference in mortality or survival rates.

Glutamine may decrease the catabolism. It may also have a positive effect on treatment time and the consequences of therapy in critically ill patients.