NEWS

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.