From the USDA
Chromium Critical
for Glucose Tolerance
By Judy McBride
September 15, 1999
Rats raised on
a chromium-deficient diet showed the earliest stage of diabetes--high
blood insulin levels. That was the outcome of an Agricultural
Research Service study published in the August issue of Metabolism.
The finding underscores
that chromium is necessary for maintaining normal glucose
tolerance, the researchers concluded. And it suggests that
low-chromium intakes--very common in industrialized nations--may
contribute to onset of Type 2 diabetes mellitus, or middle-age
diabetes, over the long term. Fortified cereals and whole
grain products are good sources of chromium.
The study was done
at ARS' Nutrient Requirements and Functions Laboratory in
Beltsville, Md., by John Striffler, now at the City of Hope
National Medical Center, Duarte, Calif., and by ARS chemists
Richard Anderson and Marilyn Polansky. ARS is USDA's chief
scientific agency.
The hormone insulin
escorts blood glucose into body cells and enables the cells
to use that glucose for fuel. Diabetes begins when the cells
become less sensitive to insulin. To use a metaphor, the cell's
biochemical door doesn't open when insulin comes knocking.
Or, if it gets in that first door, a second door stays locked.
Chromium is one of the keys to keeping both doors unlocked.
As the cells become
insensitive to insulin, the body produces more of it. So high
blood insulin is an early indicator of potential diabetes.
By the time blood glucose is elevated, a person already has
the disease.
During a glucose
tolerance test, rats that got virtually no chromium in their
food or water for three months had insulin levels twice as
high as a group that got chromium-fortified water or a control
group fed a standard chow that contains chromium.
Anderson noted
that, in animal studies, the effects of chromium deficiency
are seldom obvious until the animal is stressed. The glucose
tolerance test with its sugar load was the stressor in this
study.
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