Glutamine, an amino acid, can help reduce the serious side effects of chemotherapy treatment, researchers have found.
Eleven patients being treated with chemotherapy for acute leukemia were given 6 g of oral glutamine three times a day. The glutamine therapy started three days before the chemotherapy began and continued for between 11 and 39 days. Another group of 22 chemotherapy patients who were not given glutamine was used as a control.
The glutamine group suffered shorter and less severe bouts of diarrhea, a result which ties in with the fact that natural supplies of glutamine, the most abundant amino acid produced by the body, are severely reduced when tissues break down, as in cancer (Eur J Cancer, 1997; 33: 319-20).
For more information see WDDTY's Cancer Handbook.
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