Comments on: Patrick Holford, Glutamine and Autism

By: Patrick Holford on Andrew Wakefield: He Needs to Issue an Update « Holford Watch: Patrick Holford, nutritionism and bad science

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 08:05:55 +0000

[...] diagnostic tests, promote consultation for difficult-to-follow diets and sell supplements. Some entrepreneurs take full advantage of this market [...]

By: dvnutrix

dvnutrix — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 08:52:31 +0000

From our disclaimer:

If you have health concerns, see a doctor or dietician (a blog is not the place to diagnose a health problem).

If you are engaged in addicition, withdrawal or similar, then please consult your health adviser and the relevant agencies.

By: potsmoker

potsmoker — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 07:24:44 +0000

I am interested in addictions and withdrawel symptoms, especially weed addiction.
When you stop smoking, there is an awful clammy sweating problem for about a week.
Plus exceesive dreaming and poor sleep.
The two supplements i find really help are glutamine and 5htp
Glutamine (5g) stops the sweating within 1hr and 5htp prevents the vivid dreaming and restless sleep.
Can you shed some light on how glutamine does this? Is it because it converted into gaba? what do you think?
Is glutamine supplemention dangerous in any way?
Hope you can help.

By: Shinga

Shinga — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 20:39:43 +0000

It did all seem very weird. Ignoring the fact that the only support for glutamine and the gut on Entrez Pubmed was for feeding post-surgery patients in ICU, it just seems unnecessarily confusing for those people who are guided by him to offer contradictory advice on something that seems so important to him.

Hellaciously long sentence.

By: UKdietitian

UKdietitian — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 19:09:24 +0000

Patrick Holford really does not know the first thing about glutamine.

Glutamine is a non-essential amino acid which is used by the cells of the small intestine as an alternative energy source to glucose. A 'non-essential' amino acid is one of the 22 'building blocks' or protein that allows your body to construct whatever protein is needed. If glutamine isn't present in your diet (a virtually impossible scenario, bar starvation) then your body can make glutamine for itself from other amino acids.

But back to the cells of the small bowel. These cells obtain glutamine from two sources - from the digestive products of dietary protein en passant through the gut into the body, OR from glutamine circulating in our blood supply as it provides the small bowel cells with oxygenated blood.

As long as you eat dietary protein, you will have sufficient glutamine for the small bowel cells (the enterocytes) to use. Thats it.

There are situations in clinical dietetics where you may consider using glutamine - but its usually in people who cannot be fed using the gut,and need to be fed intravenously. It may also prove useful in the really seriously ill patients - such as those on an intensive care unit.

Its typical of Patrick to misinterpret the limited spectrum of potential benefit of additional glutamine from the really seriously ill hospitalised patient, to exploit the 'leaky gut' theory of autism.

Comment by comment, Patrick really shows his 'nutrition-lite' credentials....