hypocaloric diet and L-glutamine to avoid catabolism?

Losing hard earned muscle just to shed fat "fast" is not smart.

I know the mental battle that you are going thru but gtting tough and smart will pay off in the long run.

glutamine= sugar

watch yourself

Rick

Could you elaborate this?

bcaa's and anabolics i believe are the key to maintaining muscle mass while in a hypocaloric state.

jb

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Muscle and plasma amino acids during semi-starvation in normal subjects: hypocaloric glucose vs. amino acid infusions.Gil KM, Furst P, Wood J, Askanazi J, Elwyn DH, Kinney JM.
Department of Surgery, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, 630 West 16th Street, New York, New York 10032, USA.

Normal subjects were fed hypocaloric amounts of amino acids or glucose for 3 days to separate the effects of these nutrients from those of trauma on muscle and plasma amino acids. Intracellular and plasma levels of Val, Leu and Ile were increased in both groups but were increased to a greater extent when amino acids were infused. Intracellular free glutamine concentration in muscle tissue was not significantly altered. Some of the trauma induced changes in amino acids can be replicated by maintaining normal subjects on hypocaloric amino acids; the decrease in glutamine concentration seen with trauma is not a function of hypocaloric nutrition.

Funny, gluta never worked for me so far...

Posted by: guijr

Funny, gluta never worked for me so far...

probably not high enough doses.... 50gm/day minimum and that is conservative

Posted by: pillsbury

probably not high enough doses.... 50gm/day minimum and that is conservative

Just wondering what would be the maximum daily dose.

i dont think you could consume enough to find a maximum...
ive known someone who was taking close to 200gm a day... he was extremely sick and injured, had quite a bit of blood loss and was not expected to recover anytime before 8 weeks, was training again in 2....
i suppose one could argue that it wasnt the glutamine and something else however he swears by it and was consuming less than 1k kal a day, probably closer to 800 so there wasnt much else being ingested...
was taking heaping spoonfuls of glutamine with water only every couple of hours

another interesting byplay of glutamine is its effect on the levels of l-citrulline and hence arginine. since the oral availability of l-citrulline and its conversion to arginine is well known, one might want to throw in some l-citrulline. the oral availability of l-glutamine is not good hence the large doses.

jb

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Am J Physiol Gastrointest Liver Physiol. 2007 Nov;293(5):G1061-7. Epub 2007 Sep 27. Links
Manipulation of citrulline availability in humans.Rougé C, Des Robert C, Robins A, Le Bacquer O, Volteau C, De La Cochetière MF, Darmaun D.
UMR 1280, Physiologie des Adaptations Nutritionnelles, Centre de Recherche en Nutrition Humaine, Hotel-Dieu Hospital, Nantes Cedex 1, France.

To determine whether circulating citrulline can be manipulated in vivo in humans, and, if so, whether citrulline availability affects the levels of related amino acids, nitric oxide, urinary citrulline, and urea nitrogen, 10 healthy volunteers were studied on 3 separate days: 1) under baseline conditions; 2) after a 24-h treatment with phenylbutyrate (0.36 g.kg(-1).day(-1)), a glutamine "trapping" agent; and 3) during oral L-citrulline supplementation (0.18 g.kg(-1).day(-1)), in randomized order. Plasma, erythrocyte (RBC), and urinary citrulline concentrations were determined by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry at 3-h intervals between 1100 and 2000 on each study day. Regardless of treatment, RBC citrulline was lower than plasma citrulline, with an RBC-to-plasma ratio of 0.60 +/- 0.04, and urinary citrulline excretion accounted for <1% of the citrulline load filtered by kidney. Phenylbutyrate induced an approximately 7% drop in plasma glutamine (P = 0.013), and 18 +/- 14% (P < 0.0001) and 19 +/- 17% (P < 0.01) declines in plasma and urine citrulline, respectively, with no alteration in RBC citrulline. Oral L-citrulline administration was associated with 1) a rise in plasma, urine, and RBC citrulline (39 +/- 4 vs. 225 +/- 44 micromol/l, 0.9 +/- 0.3 vs. 6.2 +/- 3.8 micromol/mmol creatinine, and 23 +/- 1 vs. 52 +/- 9 micromol/l, respectively); and 2) a doubling in plasma arginine level, without altering blood urea or urinary urea nitrogen excretion, and thus enhanced nitrogen balance. We conclude that 1) depletion of glutamine, the main precursor of citrulline, depletes plasma citrulline; 2) oral citrulline can be used to enhance systemic citrulline and arginine availability, because citrulline is bioavailable and very little citrulline is lost in urine; and 3) further studies are warranted to determine the mechanisms by which citrulline may enhance nitrogen balance in vivo in humans.

So you mean maybe it's better to use l-citrulline instead of glutamine?

Posted by: jboldman

bcaa's and anabolics i believe are the key to maintaining muscle mass while in a hypocaloric state.

jb

Hot Rocks

I am taking around 40 grams daily, do you think that might be an effective dosage or should I increase it? By the way, in the case it is useless, could these 40 grams of L-glutamine be equivalent to 40 grams of good protein? I ask this because L-glutamine is much easier on my digestive system than either whey or casein protein, so if I can get away with taking large amounts of glutamine in order to avoid whey protein shakes, that would be a very interesting option.

By the way, what do you think about HMB? Would you try it? Taking 3-6 grams daily wouldn't be that expensive these days and, in any case, it would be just for a 2-week dieting test.

In any case, the effects of these supplements are probably very small when compared with what tiny changes in one's diet can be and specially when compared with their price. I guess they exist out of a demand from users that insist on taking something to improve their condition, even if it's just a placebo.

my understanding is that if you take enough oral glutamine it will have a muscle sparing effect, likewise the l-citrulline. i do not think it is a replacement for protein or bcaas if your goal is building muscle. its use for very sick patients has typically been iv and then only serves to prevent wasting and promopte healing. however, it is cheap and tastes pleasant so why not take it? i use it from time to time.

jb

Yeah, it tastes great, doesn't it?

The time intervals when I intend to use it my goal is not building new muscle mass. I take it only with one goal in mind: reducing muscle catabolism so that, at the end of the cutting phase, I have not lost too much skeletal muscle mass. I don't intent to gain a single gram of new muscle on it or anything like that.