A team of researchers has demonstrated the amino acid glutamine, found in many foods as well as in nutritional supplements, may be beneficial in offsetting gastric damage caused by H. pylori infection.

Scientists at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology divided 105 mice into two groups, which were fed either a standardized diet or the same diet with supplemental L-glutamine.

After two weeks, the animals were subdivided into two more groups, with one group in each of the previous categories infected with H. pylori.

The mice were then followed for a 20-week period, and the researchers noted that among the H. pylori-infected animals, the mice that were fed the L-glutamine diet exhibited lower levels of inflammation than did the mice that received the standard diet.

"[T]his result provides us with preliminary evidence that glutamine supplementation may be an alternative therapy for reducing the severity of infection," says Dr. Susan Hagen, associate director of research in the Department of Surgery at BIDMC and associate professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School.

The findings are significant given the fact that since H.pylori was discovered to be among the key contributing factors to stomach ulcers, antibiotics have been used as a standard therapy.

However, the bacteria have become increasingly resistant to them over time.