It is important to remember that nutritional support is life-saving for the patient who needs prolonged intensive care. This is also the type of patient in whom the hypothesis of bacterial translocation is most plausible. If its administration is possible, enteral nutrition is of course preferable. However, when the enteral route is not available, or the amounts that can be administered are insufficient, parenteral nutrition should be provided. Existing experimental evidence strongly suggests that glutamine should be included in such parenteral nutrition. Clinical documentation is still sparse, but as commercially available glutamine-containing nutritional products for intravenous use are now appearing on the market, more data should soon become available.