L-Glutamine

A natural history

Glutamine is the body's most abundant free amino acid, one of the essential building blocks from which all proteins, and all living tissue, are made. A share of these amino acids lives in the outermost skin as part of its own moisture keeping system, the natural moisturizing factor, the delicate web of water loving molecules that keeps the surface soft and supple.

Glutamine is also a favorite fuel of the body's fast renewing cells, the very kind that build and refresh the skin. The skin even carries its own quiet machinery for making glutamine throughout its layers, a capacity that becomes more limited with age. To offer the skin glutamine, then, is to offer it one of its own familiar molecules.

What it does for your skin

L-glutamine is a skin conditioning amino acid, one of skin's own building blocks. Skin science recognizes that amino acids form a core part of the natural moisturizing factor, the system the outer skin uses to stay hydrated and supple.^[1] Glutamine in particular is tied to the skin's continuous renewal, with the skin acting as a large reservoir of the enzyme that makes it.^[2] In a formula, L-glutamine acts as a replenishing, conditioning amino acid that helps skin look hydrated and smooth. Dedicated topical studies on the amino acid itself are limited.

References