Chromium Picolinate

What Is Chromium Picolinate?

Chromium is a trace mineral the body uses in microgram amounts, spread thinly through whole grains, broccoli, meat and brewer's yeast. Picolinic acid is a small molecule your own body makes from tryptophan. Three of them wrap around one chromium ion to form chromium picolinate, and that is the chelate used here.

How It Works in the Body

Chromium is understood to act through chromodulin, a short peptide that holds four chromium ions. When insulin signals a cell, chromium moves in, chromodulin takes it up, and the loaded peptide strengthens the signal the cell has already started. That is the route by which chromium takes part in normal carbohydrate and fat metabolism. Chromium travels through the blood on transferrin, the same protein that carries iron, and leaves in the urine.

What It Supports

• Glucose metabolism: Chromium supports glucose metabolism already in the normal range.
• Insulin signalling: Chromodulin works alongside insulin's own signal once a cell has received it.
• Macronutrient metabolism: Chromium is involved in how the body handles carbohydrate and fat.

Who It May Suit

Refining strips chromium out of whole grains, so it is relevant to eating built mostly on refined flour and sugar. It also suits people training hard, since exertion raises how much chromium leaves in the urine. The capsule is plant-based cellulose with a rice flour filler.

Good To Know

Picolinate is an organic chelate, three picolinic acid molecules around one chromium ion, so the mineral travels bound rather than as an inorganic salt. It supplies 200 mcg of elemental chromium from 1,835 mcg of chromium picolinate per serving. Talk with your healthcare provider before use if you take medication that acts on blood sugar or on insulin, since chromium works in that same pathway.