Effects of glutamine supplementation on critically ill patients – focus on efficacy and safety: an overview of systematic reviews
Aikaterini Apostolopoulou Nutrition Available online 30 July 2020,
HIGHLIGHTS
• The role of glutamine in critical illness remains controversial.
• Infectious complications rate seems to be lowered when glutamine was administered.
• Length of Hospital Stay was limited with glutamine supplementation.
• Surgical patients were found to be the most benefited patient group when glutamine was used.
Objective
The aim of this overview of systematic reviews is to synthesize, appraise, and present all systematic review (SR) evidence on the clinical efficacy of glutamine administration to severely ill patients.
Research Methods & Procedures
Medline, Scopus, The Cochrane Library and Prospero were searched up to March 2020. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) published in English, comparing immunomodulating diets -containing exclusively glutamine- with standard diets for critically ill adult patients were selected. Data were collected from each selected systematic review and all available primary studies. Our primary outcome was overall mortality, while secondary outcomes were rate of infectious complications, length of hospital (LOS) and ICU stay (ICU LOS).
Results
Seventeen SRs were eligible for inclusion, of which 16 included meta - analyses with moderate degree of overlap (CCA=10%). They included 117 RCTs with 9933 patients. Glutamine supplementation was not associated with overall mortality and length of ICU stay. However, it may reduce the rate of infectious complications overall (n=3666, RR 0.82 95 % CI (0. 73 to 0.92);I2=33% - low quality of evidence). LOS was limited with the supplementation of glutamine (n=4353 WMD -2.90, 95 %CI (-3.66 to - 2.15);I2=81% - very low quality of evidence), but this effect was diminished when only studies with low risk of bias were synthesized.
Conclusion
Glutamine could demonstrate a beneficial role in critical care patients, in order to diminish the rate of infectious complications and LOS. However, future studies with better quality should confirm this finding.