Despite continued reports of DNA damage associated with chromium picolinate intake, the UK Food Standards Association (FSA) has stopped advising people against this supplement.

Despite continued reports of DNA damage associated with chromium picolinate intake, the UK Food Standards Association (FSA) has stopped advising people against this supplement.

Chromium picolinate provides a bioavailable form of chromium(III), hailed either as an effective treatment for insulin resistance or as a potential carcinogenic agent (see Chemistry World, October 2004, p. 16). The FSA’s expert group on vitamins and minerals had previously advised the agency to recommend alternative forms of trivalent chromium supplements in light of reported mutagenicity. This has been overturned after advice from the FSA’s committee on mutagenicity (COM).

’The balance of data suggest that chromium picolinate should be regarded as not being mutagenic in vitro,’ reads a statement from the COM released in December 2004. Since no data suggest a mutagenic effect in vivo there is no call for further tests in vivo, it concludes. A US national toxicology program (NTP) carcinogenicity bioassay is ongoing and the data will be considered when released.

The FSA says people can get the chromium they need from a balanced diet, but food-supplement company Nutrition 21 recommends its product Chromax chromium picolinate.

’The COM’s conclusions put to rest any safety questions for people taking dietary supplements containing Chromax,’ says chief executive officer Gail Montgomery. ’Clinical studies indicate that nutritional supplementation with Chromax chromium picolinate improves insulin sensitivity and reduces abnormal glucose levels.’

This disappoints Diane Stearns, associate professor of chemistry at Northern Arizona University, US. Stearns, whose in vitro data were questioned in the COM report, was first to raise the issue of mutagenicity. ’The safety of chromium picolinate for human consumption is still an unanswered question, especially since the current marketing thrust recommends it for long-term high-dose usage by type 2 diabetics, a population whose health is already compromised,’ Stearns told Chemistry World.

Nutrition 21 has been ’aggressively’ advertising evidence against the mutagenic risk, said Stearns, adding she has yet to see its data. ’I invite any interested toxicologists to test it themselves. The compound is commercially available through Spectrum Chemical Company,’ she said.

Bea Perks