ABSTRACT
The concept that dietary elements may serve as modulators of intestinal physiology and the gut’s response to stress or injury has been hypothesized for many years. The gut is an attractive target for dietary modulation, owing to its direct exposure to nutritional elements orally/enterally delivered, participation in cellular uptake and metabolism of nutrients, and high plasticity in response to nutritional stimuli. Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) comprises two major forms, that is, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, with distinct clinical and histopathological features. A widely accepted hypothesis accentuates the contributory role of genetic, enteric microbiota, and immunological factors in IBD pathogenesis. Glutamine has been shown to be a prominent gut-trophic factor with a versatile function in the Gastrointestinal (GI) tract via modulating intestinal immunity and promoting GI cytoprotective mechanisms in a variety of settings of inflammatory stress and injury. The chapter investigates the therapeutic potential of glutamine in in vitro and in vivo IBD models.
