Chromium is an essential trace mineral that plays an important role in optimizing insulin function and the regulation of blood glucose levels. Chromium may also be anti-atherogenic and assist in lowering cholesterol. Following food intake, blood glucose levels rise causing insulin to be secreted by the pancreas. Insulin lowers blood glucose levels by increasing the rate at which glucose enters a person’s cells. Chromium is believed to facilitate the attachment of insulin to the cell’s insulin receptors. Studies also indicate that chromium participates in cholesterol metabolism, suggesting a role for this mineral in maintaining normal blood cholesterol levels and preventing atherosclerosis. Chromium also plays a role in nucleic acid synthesis.
Due to processing methods that remove most of the naturally occurring chromium from commonly consumed foods, dietary deficiency of chromium is believed to be widespread in the United States. Chromium deficiency may increase the likelihood of insulin resistance, a condition in which the cells of the body do not respond to the presence of insulin. Insulin resistance can lead to elevated blood levels of insulin (hyperinsulinemia) and elevated blood levels of glucose, which can ultimately cause heart disease and/or diabetes. Deficiency of chromium is associated with metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome represents a constellation of symptoms, including hyperinsulinemia, high blood pressure, high triglyceride levels, high blood sugar levels, and low HDL cholesterol levels. These symptoms increase one’s risk for heart disease. Low levels of chromium are also associated with an increased risk of coronary artery disease incidence and mortality. Chromium deficiency correlates with depressed nucleic acid synthesis. Chromium is essential for maintaining the structural stability of proteins and nucleic acids and animal studies have found that this element is also vital for healthy fetal growth and development. Studies on humans have established that premature infants, and those with evidence of intrauterine growth retardation, have significantly lower chromium status compared to infants born full-term. Others have found that multiparous women (women who’ve given birth two or more times) have far lower body chromium levels compared to nulliparae (women who’ve never given birth). These findings suggest that chromium is an essential trace element during fetal growth and development.
In 2001, the Institute of Medicine at the National Academy of Sciences conducted a thorough review of the chromium research and concluded that excessive intake of chromium from foods or supplements is not associated with any adverse effects. As a result, no Tolerable Upper Intake Level (UL) was established for this mineral. However, people with liver or kidney disease may be more susceptible to adverse effects from excessive intake of chromium, and such individuals are cautioned to avoid taking more than 200 micrograms of chromium supplements per day. There is limited evidence to suggest that long term chromium picolinate supplementation at levels greater than 200 micrograms per day may also be hazardous to chromosome integrity and should be avoided.
Understand and improve your laboratory results with our health dashboard.
Upload your lab reports and get your interpretation today.
Our technology helps to understand, combine, track, organize, and act on your medical lab test results.
Interpret Your Lab Results
Upload your lab report, and we'll interpret and provide you with recommendations today.
Get StartedMonthly plan
Annual plan
Own it for life
Our exclusive data entry service is a convenient way to get your results into your private dashboard. Simply attach an image or a file of your lab test results, and one of our qualified data entry team members will add the results for you. We support all sorts of files, whether PDFs, JPGs, or Excel. This service is excellent whether you have a lot of reports to upload or are too busy to do the data entry yourself.
We strive to make the data entry process easy for you. Whether by offering dozens of templates to choose from that pre-populate the most popular laboratory panels or by giving you instant feedback on the entered values. Our data entry forms are an easy, fast, and convenient way to enter the reports yourself. There is no limit on how many lab reports you can upload.
$15 /month
billed every month
Most popular
Data entry included
$79 /year
$6.60/month billed annually
Data entry included
$250 /once
own it for life
Are You a Health Professional?
Get started with our professional plan
Welcome to Healthmatters Pro.
Save time on interpreting lab results with the largest database of biomarkers online. In-depth research on any test at your fingertips, all stored and tracked in one place. Learn more
Pro Monthly Plus
for health professionals
$75 per month
At HealthMatters, we're committed to maintaining the security and confidentiality of your personal information. We've put industry-leading security standards in place to help protect against the loss, misuse, or alteration of the information under our control. We use procedural, physical, and electronic security methods designed to prevent unauthorized people from getting access to this information. Our internal code of conduct adds additional privacy protection. All data is backed up multiple times a day and encrypted using SSL certificates. See our Privacy Policy for more details.
Alpha Lipoic Acid, Asparagine, Biotin, Calcium, Carnitine, Choline, Chromium, Coenzyme Q10, Copper, Cysteine, Folate, Fructose Sensitivity, Glucose-Insulin Interaction, Glutamine, Glutathione, Inositol, Magnesium, Manganese, Oleic Acid, Pantothenate, Selenium, Serine, Vitamin A, Vitamin B1, Vitamin B12, Vitamin B2, Vitamin B3, Vitamin B6, Vitamin C, Vitamin D3, Vitamin E, Vitamin K2, Zinc