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Re: What is the difference?From: Christine DeZarn (anonymous@obgyn.net)Sat, 17 Feb 2001 14:42:47 -0600
Hi Kris, Good questions! Insulin Resistance is not the same as diabetes, but can be a precursor of it. People with insulin resistance can have too much insulin (hyperinsulinemia) or not enough insulin (diabetes). But often, the former leads to the latter. Here's how it happens. Insulin is needed to transport glucose (nutrition) to every cell in your body. Insulin resistance starts at the cellular level, where the insulin can't effectively transport glucose into your body's cells. For lack of a better description, the glucose is knocking on the door, and insulin is supposed to have the key to open the lock. But the key doesn't quite fit right, and often it can't get the door opened up to let the "food" in to the cell. This is where the term "resistance" comes from. The cell resists the insulin's attempt to get in. The cell is actually starving for nutrition, and the food is on the other side of the door, just trying to get in. But the cell door is signaling that it's not hungry - please go away! The insulin responds as if the cell doesn't need any more food, so it goes and stores the food for later use (i.e. generally stores it in a fat cell). So people with insulin resistance often produce too much insulin, overcompensating for the inefficiency in getting the nutrition to the cells. That's called hyperinsulinemia. At some point, the pancreas may no longer be able to produce all of this extra insulin. It can't keep up! So glucose starts to accumulate in the blood stream. Now you have diabetes. So no, they are not the same thing. A general rule of thumb is that a Type II diabetic is by definition insulin resistant, but an insulin resistant person is not necessarily a diabetic (yet). With regard to inositol, I had the pleasure of visiting Insmed last summer, where I learned first-hand about d-Chiro-inositol, a natural compound that is being studied for use in diabetes and PCOS. Please see the following web site for a great animated description of insulin resistance of how d-chiro-inositol is thought to work: http://www.insmed.com/products2.html. It has been shown that d-chiro-inositol plays a role in the insulin mediator process, that may very well alleviate IR. However, the compound that is commercially sold as "inositol" in health food stores is NOT d-chiro-inositol, and may even be harmful for women with PCOS to take. Women with PCOS may be biochemically unable to process inositol normally (thus the lack of d-chiro-inositol and suggested need for supplementation). So adding even more inositol intake would be a bad thing. This would just introduce even more of a chemical that is already not being processed normally. There is no proof that this exacerbates PCOS, but it is fairly clear that the commercial "inositol" compound would not assist in alleviating PCOS either, according to the hypothesis of d-chiro-inositol function. It's suspected that it may be harmful to IR individuals, but not proven. Hope that helps! Christine Gray DeZarn -----Original Message----- From: anonymous@obgyn.net [mailto:anonymous@obgyn.net Behalf Of kris Sent: Friday, February 16, 2001 11:07 PM To: Multiple recipients of list PCOS Subject: What is the difference? Hello, Everyone I have a couple questions. By being IR does that mean I have diabetes? Whats the difference?Has anyone here lost weight from inositol?I appreciate all your comments and I read this forum every day. Thanks for all the help
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