Clinical Trial of Glutamine Supplementation on Critical Illness

Can cancer cells use glutamine as energy source too? In this video, Prof. Yeh will talk about the research results.

Since glutamine is the energy source of fast proliferation cells, will the supplement of glutamine promote the proliferation of cancer cells? According to animal experiments in the past, the supplement of glutamine restrains the growth of breast cancer cells because it promotes the activity of the natural killer cell in our body. It is selective between healthy cells and cancer cells. Prof. Yeh will explain the mechanic of how natural killer cell is capable of eliminating the cells of breast cancer.

When the cancer cells are not able to be protected by the antioxidant substances, they will be easily killed during radiotherapy or chemotherapy. After the supplement of glutamine, it increases the antioxidant capacity of healthy cells but decreases the antioxidant capacity of cancer cells and makes the cancer cells to be eliminated more easily.

In terms of the result mentioned above, the supplement of glutamine provides restraint action towards cancer cells.

However, in another experiment of research from differenct cancers. If providing it a lot of glutamine, it will actually increase the growth of cancer cells. Various cancer cells will have different application capacity towards glutamine. In some cases, it promotes cancer cells’ growth.

Currently, we are unable to thoroughly understand the application capacity towards glutamine by all the cancers. A lot of treatment to cancer at the moment focuses on the metabolic pathway for glutamine. Many treatment methods for cancers are to restrain the glutamine.

Therefore, under current situation, it is not suggested to supplement glutamine when there are active cancer cells in our body.