Able Weight Loss Center

Introduction:

Chromium supplementation is especially appropriate in light of evidence that 9 out of 10 Americans get less than the 50 micrograms daily intake established as the minimal "safe and adequate intake" by the National Academy of Sciences. The median daily intake is only 30 micrograms. Chromium is analogous to the essential minerals iodine and selenium in that it is not a nutritional requirement for plants. Thus, crops can grow perfectly well in soils that are chromium-depleted, yielding foods that are low in chromium. In addition food refining techniques often remove chromium. High sugar diets as well as exercise have been shown to increase dietary requirements for this mineral.

Chromium is crucially important to health owing to its role in supporting the insulin sensitivity of the body's tissues. Insulin is vital for regulating the metabolism of carbohydrate, protein and fat. Severe chromium deficiency leads to insulin resistance and a clinical syndrome similar to mature-onset diabetes. Insulin resistance is now known to be an important risk factor for cardiovascular disease and is associated with hypertension, obesity and other factors.

The use of metal picolinates as highly bioactive sources of essential minerals was developed and patented by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The originator of this concept, Dr. Gary Evans, now at Bemidji State University, Minnesota has subsequently played a leading role in researching the physiological effects and benefits of chromium picolinate.

Chromium picolinate has proven to be an exceptionally effective nutritional source of chromium in clinical and experimental studies. Published controlled studies have demonstrated the following benefits for supplemental chromium picolinate:

Reduction of elevated cholesterol
Improved glucose control in mature-onset diabetes
Reduction of body fat accompanied by an increase in lean mass

Perhaps the most striking discovery is that chromium picolinate, fed to rats throughout life, increased their median life span by 36% and also extended maximum life span. This suggests that chromium picolinate - in a manner analogous to calorie restriction - may literally be slowing the aging process at a fundamental level.

Chromium Fact Sheet

1. Chromium is an essential nutrient absolutely required for good health. It is an essential cofactor for the hormone insulin which regulates the metabolism of protein, fats and carbohydrates...practically everything we eat.

2. Oral trivalent chromium (nutritional chromium) is virtually non-toxic even in amounts considerably in excess of the ordinary nutritional range.

3. Chromium occurs naturally in small amounts in such foods as brewer's yeast, black pepper, lobster and liver.

4. Nine out of 10 Americans do not get an adequate amount of chromium in their diet because:

they do not eat foods containing chromium
chromium is lost during food processing
chromium is not required by plants so it will be poorly supplied by plants in chromium depleted soil
a high sugar diet, common in Americans, causes a loss of chromium from the body
stress increases the need for chromium
the form of chromium in many foods is not easily absorbed

5. In 1982 the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) discovered a patented biologically active form of chromium picolinate.

6. To provide the benefits of this discovery to American consumers, USDA licensed the patent to Nutrition 21, an applied nutritional research company in California.

7. Extensive research published in scientific and technical journals shows that daily supplementation with at least 200mcg of chromium picolinate can:

Reduce body fat
Retain and build lean muscle
Lower elevated blood sugar in diabetics
Reduce elevated cholesterol levels
Extend the life span of laboratory animals

Chromium Picolinate as it relates to obesity

In overweight individuals, chromium stimulates fat loss. This is somewhat contradictory because increasing insulin sensitivity should increase weight gain. How chromium does this is likely twofold. First, it seems to have an effect upon the satiety center of the hypothalamus. It is this part of the brain that says, "You've had enough, stop eating." Studies have shown that when the hypothalmus is damaged in animals, they will continue to eat, gaining enormous amount of weight. There are sensors in the hypothalamus for both glucose and insulin, and chromium seems to stimulate these, which would thus cut down on food intake.

Second, chromium seems to enhance the thermogenic effects of carbohydrate foods. Thermogenesis is the body's "wasting" of food energy; that is, it simply burns energy without doing work. This is one area where you want to be wasteful, because if you are not, the energy is stored as fat.

Carbohydrates have a natural tendency to increase thermogenic or wasteful energy reactions-one of the reasons you lose weight when on a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet. Chromium seems to enhance thermogenic reactions by activating the sympathetic nervous system, which increases caloric burning.