Objectives: The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of oral L-Glutamine supplementation on hospitalization time, need for intensive care unit and Coronavirus Disease-19 (Covid-19) mortality.
Methods: The study included 30 Covid-19 patients using L-Gluta- mine and 30 Covid-19 patients who did not use L-Glutamine with similar age, gender and clinical status. Diagnostic tests, laboratory examinations, clinical findings and computed thorax tomography imaging of the patients were evaluated.
Results: Hospitalization time was 10.4 ± 1.9 days in Covid-19 without L-Glutamine group and 8.9 ± 1.8 days in Covid-19 with L- Glutamine group (p 1⁄4 0.005). In Covid-19 without the L-Glutamine group, four patients require the ICU though no one in the other group required that (p 1⁄4 0.038). Only one mortality was observed in Covid-19 without the L-Glutamine group (p 1⁄4 0.999). Conclusions: Nutritional supplements such as L-Glutamine boost immune system especially by inhibition of inflammatory re- sponses. Our results suggest adding enteral L-glutamine to the normal nutrition in the early period of Covid-19 infection may lead to a shortened hospital stay and lead to less need for ICU. Larger- scale studies are needed to evaluate the effect of adding enteral L- Glutamine to the currently used treatments in the infectious dis- eases especially like Covid-19.
