ADA Press Release
New Research
on Chromium and Diabetes
San Diego,
California (June 21, 1999)- Chromium picolinate may
be a useful addition to standard combination drug treatment
of Type 2, non-insulin dependent diabetes, suggests a new
clinical study presented at the 59th annual scientific sessions
of the American Diabetes Association.
Austrian researchers
studied the effects of supplementation with chromium picolinate
(500 mcg, two times a day) for 4 months in 16 obese patients
with a mean age of 56 years. All patients were pretreated
with, and continued to receive stable doses of a sulphonylurea
and metformin, standard treatments for Type 2 diabetes,
throughout the study.
Babak Bahadori,
MD, of the University of Graz in Austria reported that chromium
picolinate appeared to enhance the effects of metformin
and oral sulfonylureas. The addition of chromium was associated
with significant reductions in fasting insulin levels, without
a detrimental effect on glucose control. Insulin resistance
assessed by the insulin suppression test was not affected.
"The ability
of chromium picolinate to lower fasting insulin levels in
patients already receiving diabetic medications is clinically
important because an elevated insulin level in the blood
is an established risk factor for cardiovascular disease.
These findings provide justification for the use of chromium
picolinate as a nutritional adjunct in the dietary management
of diabetes," said Dr. Bahadori.
The positive
effects seen in this clinical study could be associated
with an effect of chromium picolinate on insulin clearance,
he added.
Additional
clinical research on the "Insulin Assistance Factor"
Speaking at a
breakfast symposium, William T. Cefalu, MD, Associate Professor
of Medicine in the Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism
Unit at the University of Vermont College of Medicine described
an improvement in insulin sensitivity in obese people with
pre-diabetic symptoms who received chromium picolinate.
Dr. Cefalu called for additional work to be conducted in
determining chromium picolinate's ability to possibly delay
the onset and/or progression of type 2 diabetes.
In another presentation,
Alexander Ravina, MD, of the Diabetes Department at the
Linn Clinic in Haifa, Israel, presented the results of a
study published in Diabetic Medicine that showed that chromium
picolinate reduced or eliminated the symptoms in 41 out
of 44 patients with steroid-induced diabetes after standard
drug therapy failed. The 41 patients who had developed diabetes
as a result of undergoing steroid treatment and who benefited
from chromium picolinate were able to reduce or eliminate
their diabetic medication, such as insulin.
