Chiro-inositol deficiency and insulin resistance
ANSWER: Hi, Chiro-inositol is a molecule that serves to transmit the signal of the insulin. When the insulin connects to his receptor on the membrane of the cell, it is causing changes in the structure in this receptor. The changed shape of this receptor activates chiro-inositol and myo-inositol, both of which are leading to the opening of the pores, thru which glucose enters in the cells. Myo-inositol is particularly observed in the muscles, but chiro-inositol is in almost every cell. When you have chiro-inositol deficiency, these changes in the structure of the insulin receptor do not cause the activation of this particular molecule. For that reason, glucose is not able to enter the cells because chiro-inositol hasn’t opened the pores. From this point of view, you might have normal insulin secretion, but you have elevation of the blood sugar, a condition called insulin resistance. Therefore, your cells are not able to use the glucose. This is particularly true only for those tissues which are insulin dependent. For your information, there are also insulin independent cells, which mean that they can use the blood glucose without the presence of insulin. As a consequence, they take the glucose directly from the blood stream and there are no insulin receptors on their membrane. Insulin independent tissues are brain, liver and heart. For that reason, the presence or the absence of chiro-inositol is not something important for these types of tissues. The explanation of this is that these tissues are very active and they need increased amount of glucose. Because of this, they are not supposed to wait for insulin to start working, like the muscles. Besides this, brain cells need a lot of glucose to work fine. For that reason insulin dependent transportation is going to delay the entering of glucose in the cells, which is going to reduce the ability to work fast and fine. Dr.Alba |