Tuesday, September 13, 2022
Queen’s University expert, Daren Heyland (Medicine) has new research published in the New England Journal of Medicine about whether the nutrient glutamine helps burn patients. Glutamine is an amino acid that is made in the body and is found in foods like fish, eggs, and nuts.
The scientific trial, which took 10 years to complete, involved 2700 patients from around the world. The study found that glutamine did not improve a patient’s time to discharge from the hospital.
“In the past, small single centre trials had suggested that glutamine was beneficial in the recovery of patients with severe burns. However, our previous work with glutamine in stressed, sick patients suggested that glutamine might be harmful in critically ill patients with organ failure. The only way to resolve these conflicting data was to conduct a large trial evaluating glutamine in severe burns,” said Dr. Heyland.
Dr. Heyland’s research evaluates the use of nutrition or specific nutrients and their role in improving the recovery of critically ill patients. He will be continuing this work by next looking at high-dose intravenous vitamin C in burn-injured patients.
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