The opinion of gynecologists and pharmacologists
Interview with Prof. Alessandro Genazzani
and Filippo Drago
Do you know D-CHIRO-INOSITOL?
D-chiro-Inositol (DCI) belongs to the family of inositols, extremely important nutrients which are absorbed via nutrition but are also produced by our body.
Inositols occur in nature in nine different stereoisomers, among which DCI and Myo are the only with biological activity”.. This molecule, contained in a range of foods like cereal, nuts, pulses and fruit, functions as a second messenger of insulin.
The synthesis of DCI in our body starts from another inositol, called Myo-inositol (MYO), by means of a transformation process enacted by an enzyme called epimerase.
Find out where to find DCI in nature and its function for the body.
What is the function of DCI
and what happens in case
of its lack?
Many studies suggests that a deficit in the production of DCI
might result in the pathogenic mechanism of insulin-resistance, which is a
poor response of the organism to the signal sent by the insulin-receptor.
This condition is related to several dysfunctions, such as metabolic syndrome,
diabetes, gestational diabetes and PCOS.
Some research speculates that, when treating the aforementioned dysfunctions, an integration of the two molecules in a 40 (MYO) to 1 (DCI) ratio might be more beneficial than the integration of one inositol only.
However, there is no scientific evidence of such hypothesis.
SIGO (Italian Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology)
and SIF (Italian Society of Pharmacology)
have expressed their opinion on this topic