Is chromium picolinate safe? - weight-loss supplement - Answering Machine

Vegetarian Times, Feb, 1996 by Tony Jaros

I recently read that the popular weight-loss supplement chromium picolinate was found in a research study to be carcinogenic. Is this research really something I should be concerned about, and moreover, should I feel safe taking my chromium picolinate?

As with many questions regarding either the safety or efficacy of nutritional supplements, the answer to your first question is possibly, and your second is probably, at least until more definitive research appears. The answers depend on who you ask, but one thing is for certain--this debate is as spirited and angry as any that has involved the supplement industry.

Since the late 1980s, sales of chromium picolinate have skyrocketed on claims that it helps the body build muscle, reduce body fat and lose weight without dieting. Chromium, an essential trace element found in foods such as broccoli, cheese and brewer's yeast, helps the body metabolize blood sugars, as well as assists in the processing of fats and proteins. Weight-loss claims have stated that chromium is both an appetite suppressant and a "super metabolizer"; increasing one's chromium intake causes an increase in metabolic rate, so the user will bum more calories instead of retaining them.

The medical melee started last October, when the New York Times leaked the results of a not-yet-released chromium study conducted by Diane M. Stearns and Karen E. Wetterhahn of Dartmouth College, and John P. Wise, Sr. and Steven R. Patierno of George Washington University. Steams (who headed the research) and her team injected cells taken from the ovaries of Chinese hamsters with what they considered "reasonable" doses of chromium picolinate, and found that the cells suffered chromosome damage ranging from 3 times to 18 times normal levels. The study and its companion piece appeared in full form in the December issue of The FASEB Journal, a publication of the Federation of American Societies of Experimental Biology. It reported that chromium picolinate was found to be clastogenic, meaning that it damaged chromosomes, but this finding doesn't necessarily mean that it is carcinogenic, or a definite substance or agent that produces cancer. The fact that a substance damages chromosomes is considered to be a good indicator of its carcinogenity. "This is the first test to directly WA carcinogenity to a form of chromium that is used as a supplement; it predicts, not proves that chromium picolinate is a human carcinogen," says Stearns. "We present this work as a call for further study; it is not a final answer.

While researchers admit their findings are inconclusive, the news of even a possible link between the wildly popular supplement and cancer caused the chromium industry to launch a full-scale attack. "The [methods and results of this study] are totally, 100 percent wrong," says Dr. Barry Mennen, executive director of the New-york based Chromium Information Bureau. "Chromium is the safest trace element known to man."

The researchers worked from a hypothesis based on research conducted some 30 years ago on an entirely different form of chromium than what is sold in supplement form. Hexavalent chromium, or chromium-6, is a known human carcinogen generally breathed in by workers in industrial situations that is easily absorbed by human cells. Scandanavian researchers conducted autopsies on workers who were last exposed to chromium-6 some 15 to 20 years before their deaths from lung cancer. They found high chromium levels present in tissue samples; interestingly, the chromium found was not chromium-6, but chromium-3, because all chromium converts to chromium-3 in the tissues. The Stearns group wanted to know if chromium-3, when injected into the cells, had the same carcinogenic effects as chromium-6. Chromium-3 is the form of chromium present in food and nutritional supplements.

The second part of the hypothesis had to do with the presence of picolinate in the chromium supplement. With the exception of chromium-6, chromium is not well absorbed by the body; picolinic acid is added as an enabler to help the body increase its uptake. "We wanted to know if you get chromium-3 [not converted from chromium-6] inside the cell, will you get damage, and if you are enhancing uptake, are you enhancing damage?" The research reported that not only did chromium picolinate damage chromosomes, but so too did picolinic acid when tested alone, although to a lesser extent. Other chromium compounds--such as chromium nicotinate and nicotinic acid--did not produce the same damage. According to Stearns, the fact that picolinic acid tested positive for clastogenicity is interesting--the fact that picolinate's damage was even more pronounced when paired with chromium convinced the researchers that further research was needed.

Critics claim that further research would be pointless, because the theories being tested were without merit. These critics focus on two major points:

* Chromium-3 is not easily absorbed into cells and tissues. Although the Steams group admits that chromium 3 not easily absorbed, they cite studies where animals were given chromium-3 orally, resulting in tissue accumulations of the compound. But Dr. Richard Anderson, a chromium researcher for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, defends the safety of chromium, saying that the hypothesis on which the study was based--the fact that chromium-6 converts itself to chromium-3 in the tissues--makes absolutely no difference because chromium-3 will not enter the tissues on its own. There may be increased uptake of chromium in the blood, but what the body doesn't need win be excreted instead of stored, just as the body does with other vitamins and minerals such as calcium, protein or vitamin C; toxic levels win not accumulate in the tissues.