I've been reading on d-chiroinositol in response to the fact that this is consistently one of the most common search terms bringing readers to our blog.
Today I'd like to share findings of a study about how our own behaviors may influence d-chiroinositol.
In this study, humans were placed on a 3 day fast. After one night of fasting, their blood glucose was measured and a muscle biopsy was obtained from their quadriceps muscle. They were also given an oral glucose tolerance test. This was all repeated after 3 days of fasting.
I would like you to consider that the results of this study may be indicating what may happen if you're bouncing back and forth between crash dieting and overeating. Or following a protocol such as the HCG diet, with a very low calorie level.
After a 72 hour fast, blood glucose doubled 1.5 to 2 times what it was at fasting. Insulin increased 2 to 4 fold. In other words, insulin release overcompensated for the amount of food that was actually eaten. The bodies of these research subjects seemed to want to scoop up all available energy because the restricting told it that it needed to do so.
Potential message: If you want to drop your insulin levels, don't skip meals and don't flip-flop between crash dieting and recovery eating.
After a 72-hour fast, muscle content of D-chiroinositol was reduced by about 20%.
Potential messages: (1) Your own imbalanced eating may be one of the important reasons your d-chiroinositol levels are insufficient, and (2) your best strategy for increasing those levels may be to eat normal and give up the crash dieting.
Shashkin PN, Huang LC, Larner J, Vandenhoff GE, Katz A. Fasting decreases the content of D-chiroinositol in human skeletal muscle. Int J Exp Diabetes Res. 2002 Jul-Sep;3(3):163-9.