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Glutamine or DGL for Stomach Problems and Acid Reflux

One of my Stages students told me he was having stomach problems. For nearly a decade he was on and off various pharma drugs for gastric distress, acid reflux and the like. I’m sure you’ve seen  the brand names he used on TV.

Usually I would tell people to try DGL, De-Glycyrrhizinated licorice. You just suck on a capsule and for many people it cures ulces and the like. This sounded different, so I used a different approach...

"Why not try L-glutamine?" I asked. So off he went to buy a bottle. It didn’t work. He tried another bottle. It didn’t work. He tried a third bottle with a company brand I always recommend - Jarrow - and with one tablet his multiyear problem finally disappeared. He told a friend, who tried one as well, and BINGO! - His many years of suffering were now gone one as well.

Now I’m not saying that L-Glutamine will cure your stomach problems, but it certainly is one of the first things I’d try (in addition to looking at your diet and eating habits). All the Stages students get a free workover like this.

I’d try PepZingi along with L-glutamine (also Jarrow brand) which is a carnosine-zinc supplement that might help, too. The big lesson  is that this student tried two other brands before he found one that worked. That’s the interesting thing, and it’s the point I always make with nutritional supplements - BRANDS matter, and don’t discount a simple remedy if you tried it but used an inferior brand company. I’m amazed that he had trusted my recommendation enough to keep trying bottles and also that the first bottle didn’t work.

Why should the first bottle have worked? Because L-glutamine is an amino acid. It’s a commodity product. It should be the same from company to company. So  the first bottle should have worked. Yet it didn’t. Neither did the second bottle, yet it should have for a commodity product like L-glutamine. Finally when he tried the orignal brand I had recommended (int he first place), the problem was solved.

Quality matters. Brands matter. Many companies offer non-pharmaceutical grade products that just don’t work - and that might have beent he problem here. You check the label, it looks ok, but the supplement  just doesn’t work because the company  used inferior grade products.

That’s usually what happens when you buy a product because of some direct mail piece….you’re wasting your cash.  It also happens with the large corporate companies who buy a family owned supplements firm, and then start substituting cheaper ingredients for  grade A ingredients to increase the margins. The execs  pat themelves on the back as margins and profits improve for a year or so, but then cannot figure out why in year 2 or 3 people aren’t reordering anymore. "The market must be changing," they figure. Iditos - they destroyed their product for short term money. That’s what large corporations do. That’s how they think. "It’s exactly the same substance so it shouldnot matter since the chemical is the same," they convince themselves. But it isn’t.

Coincidentally today I was talking to a famous naturopath who told me he feels less than 5% of nutritional products work or do what you hope they’ll do. Coincidentally today I also bumped into the NOW representative for New York, and we spent an hour talking about the NOW brand which is one of the two that I always recommend. WHY? It’s cheaper than others because they cut out the middle man distributor (which lowers prices by about 25%) and also most of their sales to health stores are done by phone fromt he home office. That’s another big savings, on top of the fact they do very little advertising for a big savings as well. But most of all, it’s still a family held firm that CARES about the products it makes and the ingredients used. Quality is still important.

NOW also has a stomach supplement - the name escapes me - but you can find it and might try it, too. NOW has a fantastic glucosamine-chondroitin formula whose quality is much better than what you’ll find elsewhere when dealing with arthritis and joint problem supplements. They have a new heart supplement and they introduced a very special vitamin E that may give Unique E and Yasso E a run for their money. If you need vitamin E, try their Tru-E brand.

In short,  if you want to try out a supplement when you go to the store, try these two brands first: Jarrow and NOW. They are not always the brand I recommend, but if you have no idea what to buy when you go to a store then you have a high probability of doing OKAY with these two companies.

That’s just my two cents to help you.

And by the way, try out Ulcetrol from NOW for stomach problems. It's brand new and contains most all the things, except glutamine, I'd put in such a supplement for the stomach.