Myo-Inositol
Regulates serotonin signaling to stabilise mood and support restful sleep.
Benefits
Stress resilience — Increases ↑
Mood balance — Improves ↑
Global/subjective sleep quality — Improves ↑
Sleep duration & efficiency — Improves ↑
Oxidative stress — Decreases ↓
Sperm motility & testosterone (men) — Improves ↑
The science
Supports stress resilience, serotonin signaling, mood balance, nervous system function, and metabolic health by optimizing insulin signaling. (Fights oxidative stress for better mitochondrial function.) Myo-inositol supports sleep quality by helping regulate nervous-system signaling, stress-related mental overactivity, and glucose-insulin balance. In pregnancy research, it improved global sleep quality, subjective sleep quality, sleep duration, and sleep efficiency, suggesting it helps the body achieve more stable and restorative sleep without acting as a sedative.
Beyond nervous-system signaling,myo-inositol plays a documented role in the body's insulin pathway. Once inside cells, it's converted into inositol phosphoglycans molecules that act as secondary messengers after insulin binds its receptor, helping activate GLUT-4, the glucose transporter that moves glucose into cells (research published in the American Journal of Physiology and Frontiers in Endocrinology). This is why myo-inositol is typically described in the research literature as insulin-sensitizing rather than insulin-mimicking: it supports how tissues respond to the insulin the body already produces, rather than replacing insulin's own function.
Myo-inositol has also been studied for reproductive health in both women and men. In women, research (much of it in PCOS populations) has focused on its role in supporting ovarian function, hormone regulation, and insulin handling together. In men, a 2024 systematic review and meta-analysis (Ghaemi et al., Food Science & Nutrition) pooling 16 human studies found myo-inositol supplementation was associated with significant improvements in total and progressive sperm motility, a significant increase in testosterone levels, and a significant decrease in sperm DNA fragmentation with additional randomized trials (e.g., Calogero et al., Andrology, 2015) reporting improved sperm concentration, count, and reproductive hormone levels in men with idiopathic infertility. This supports including myo-inositol as a fertility- and hormone-supportive ingredient for both partners, not solely a sleep or metabolic one.
