Inositol is a simple carbohydrate required for the proper formation of cell membranes. In the body, it plays an important role in the transmission of nerve impulses; it also helps in the transporting of fats within the body.
Preliminary studies have shown that inositol supplements may improve the transmission of neural signals in patients with diabetes, nerve damage and numbness. Some double-blind studies have found that it also may help patients who suffer from depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Most people do not need to take inositol supplements. However, many double-trials have used a dose of 12-18 grams of inositol per day. Some practitioners recommend 500mg of inositol supplements daily.
Nuts, beans, citrus fruit (especially cantaloupes and oranges), nuts, rice, veal, pork and wheat germ are excellent sources of inositol. Most dietary inositol is in the form of phytate, a naturally occurring plant fiber that is believed to possess antioxidant properties.
No clear deficiency levels for inositol have been established, although diabetic patients do have increased inositol excretion. Similarly, no toxicity levels have been established; however, people with chronic renal failure often show increased inositol levels.
References
Chronic pain afflicts over 20% of the adult population. Sadly, most MDs have essentially no education in treating pain, beyond offering a few toxic medications. Then they tend to steer people with pain away from those health practitioners who are trained. This puts the acupuncture community on the front lines for addressing this epidemic.
When the body is going through a stressful event, the sympathetic system is activated. This activation will help the body with a life-threatening situation. If this state is activated for prolonged periods of time, it starts to consume energy. These traumatic events that generate stressors in the autonomic nervous system (ANS) will eventually become internalized.
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One of the things that makes acupuncture so difficult to measure is that the medicine actually does contain some esoteric aspects. There have been numerous studies that demonstrate the neurochemical reasoning behind why acupuncture points stimulate the autonomic nervous system to enact change However, not all the benefits of TCM can easily be measured by randomized, controlled trials. But does that make them fundamentally and definitively untrue?
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