Part 4.
CHROMIUM
Unless dietary trends do an abrupt about-face, the world is heading for a dramatic increase in type 2 diabetes. According to the World Health Organization, the global caseload will more than double by 2025—to 300 million, up from 143 million in 1997. Want to avoid becoming a statistic? A good place to start is reducing your intake of white flour and sugar. But emerging evidence suggests you should also consider boosting your chromium.
Why? Scientists have long known that chromium is involved in sugar metabolism. Whenever your body mobilizes stored glucose, it requires chromium to do that. Now research is showing that the mineral may help diabetic and pre-diabetic patients boost their insulin sensitivity by increasing both the number of insulin receptors on cells and the activity of those receptors. "In almost every study where we gave chromium, we got better control of glucose with less insulin," says biochemist Richard Anderson at the USDA's Human Nutrition Research Center in Beltsville, Md.
Since we need only trace amounts of chromium, it should be easy to get enough from the diet. Yet research suggests that many of us are falling short—perhaps because we're eating so many refined carbohydrates. So try consuming more chromium-boosting broccoli, apples and other produce while cutting down on chromium-depleting sugar. As a fallback, consider a supplement of chromium picolinate. (Multivitamins contain chromium, but in a less absorbable form.) The current recommendation is 25 to 35 micrograms a day, but trials have used 200 or more. |
