Chromium is one of the supplements that are recommended to those who are chronically unable to lose weight or have blood sugar or insulin resistance issues. This is because chromium makes insulin complete its job by getting glucose or sugar out of the bloodstream and into our body cells more effectively. When your body does not need to overproduce insulin, you have a more balanced hormonal environment for both health and healthy weight loss.
In fact, chromium is one type of mineral which is found in common foods such as meats, vegetables and whole grain breads. It is sold as a popular supplement too as chromium aids in the function of insulin, subsequently helps in weight loss. As such, those who want to have a healthy weight loss can make use of chromium besides perform right exercise and have correct diet habit.
Studies in chromium
In fact, chromium has been tested in various studies, specifically for weight loss and muscle building aspects. Studies show that by chromium itself, it probably does not serve weight loss purpose. Anyway, it automatically helps to control one of the biggest obstacles to healthy weight loss by its ability to increase the effectiveness of insulin.
A study on effects of chromium supplements on body composition in overweight African-American women shows that the women with chromium consumption group (200 mg three times a day) have a significant loss of fat and a sparing of muscle. Another study indicates that while chromium supplementation does not have an effect on everyone, it has positive effect on fasting insulin levels in those subjects who have high fasting levels at the beginning stage.
Conclusion: There have been mixed results in studies on the examination of chromium’s role as a weight loss aid. Anyway, most studies show that it has positive effect on increasing the effectiveness of insulin.
Is it safe to take chromium?
Actually, chromium supplements consists of several different forms of chromium like chromium nicotinate, chromium polynicotinate, chromium arginate, with the most popular one, chromium picolinate.
There are some claims about over dosage of chromium supplements can cause some health risk, including DNA damage and precancerous conditions related to chromium picolinate. Anyway, all the studies are just focused on the possible damaging effects of pocolinic acid in chromium picolinate, and do not cast any doubt whatsoever on the safety of chromium itself, which has been proved to be one of the safest nutrients people can consume. In fact, a review published in Journal of Nutrition indicates that doses of chromium that are about 300 times the current daily recommended intake have been found safe in animals.
Dosage of Chromium
Normally, the recommended dose for chromium is 200mg three times a day, although sometimes it is used in dosages up to 1,000 mg with no negative effects.
Chromium is generally not well absorbed, and it is recommended be taken on an empty stomach. In fact, you can also take multivitamin supplements that include chromium for optimal health benefit. For healthy weight loss purpose, get more weight loss tips and understand correct weight loss concept before jump into any program for weight loss.
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