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Chromium anyone?

I have heard good things about it too... But my bg fluctuates by a lot more than 1mmol/l (both up and down)if i don't eat, so i think it might be too early to assign the drop to chromium.

Do you have several weeks detailed records of your before-chromium bgs and a food diary, so that you can do a comparison?
 
I've been taking Chromium for the past year and a half, on the advice of a friend - I should add that I'm not usually a person who likes to take supplements of any kind. My bg's have been low, normal range, for a long time now and I'm not sure if the Chromium has contributed to this, but I have a feeling it has, so will continue to take it. When I ran out recently, I had a couple days of higher bg's so it may point to a connection.
The only other supplement I take is Magnesium (chelated), I know for sure this helps my RLS and to have a better sleep.
 
ladybird64 said:
I've been taking Chromium for the past year and a half, on the advice of a friend - I should add that I'm not usually a person who likes to take supplements of any kind. My bg's have been low, normal range, for a long time now and I'm not sure if the Chromium has contributed to this, but I have a feeling it has, so will continue to take it. When I ran out recently, I had a couple days of higher bg's so it may point to a connection.
The only other supplement I take is Magnesium (chelated), I know for sure this helps my RLS and to have a better sleep.
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Yes, there have been lots of studies that it works to lower blood sugar, certainly does with me. I went out the other night, (ironically to celebrate my 1st 3 months and the A1c test, I always always stress diet coke with my tipple, I had a feeling something didn't taste right...got home, tested, 9! I immediately took 2 chromium supplements, and it went back down to under 5 within 2 hours. BTW, how much do you take a day? I have now been off metroforin for over a week, and still between 4 and maximum 6 after food, with these supplements.
 
Foxy in Cyprus said:
Anyone got any experience with this? I purchased some chromium picolinate from Holland and Barrat yesterday, also found this link.

http://www.diabetesincontrol.com/supplementation-with-chromium-picolinate/
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Some time ago i did a self monitoring trial using chromium picolinate, and I found it reduced my fasting bgl by between 1 and 2 mmol/L. My levels rose by that when I stopped taking it, and I plotted the trend lines to confirm the effect. Since then I take chromium supplement but not on a regular basis since there are no real studies on the long term effects on health.

It would seem that chromium is normally obtained from diet, so should not need supplements. I have read also that the supplement only appears to work while there is a dietary deficiency. Extract taken from an ADA Diabetes journal gives:- << Trivalent chromium is found in a wide range of foods, including egg yolks, whole-grain products, high-bran breakfast cereals, coffee, nuts, green beans, broccoli, meat, brewer’s yeast, and some brands of wine and beer >>. Having said that, modern diets are possibly becoming deficient, and also use of any type of diuretic treatment may lead to depletion. Smokers and heavy coffee drinkers may also be specially affected.
 
HI, well I take 600 mg every day, and after 3 months since diagnosis, am off metroformin, so all I can say is it works for me!
 
Foxy in Cyprus said:
HI, well I take 600 mg every day, and after 3 months since diagnosis, am off metroformin, so all I can say is it works for me!
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Please confirm that your daily dose is in millegrams(mg), not micrograms(ug). Here in Uk most suppliers offer microgram doses, and this is 1000th of what you have stated here. I personally take 200 ug a day, but am still requiring most of my meds.
 
Oldvatr said:
Please confirm that your daily dose is in millegrams(mg), not micrograms(ug). Here in Uk most suppliers offer microgram doses, and this is 1000th of what you have stated here. I personally take 200 ug a day, but am still requiring most of my meds.
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Must be ugs! Sorry! 200 come from a multi vitamin I take, which I purchased in South Cyprus at Holland and Barrat, and the other 400 from two tablests, again from Holland and Barrat, called chromium and picolinate. I have the multi vit am, and one tablet at lunch and the other before dinner.
 
I note that most of the testing was done with either 500 mcg or 3 x 200mcg, and only one mention of 1000 mcg, I am myself very suspicious of claims that something reduces insulin resistance especially in vivo. it is extremely difficult to measure this in a live subject, and normally requires analysis by mass spectrometer to detect enzymes in the blood, It cannot realisticlly be done by measuring glucose levels in the blood, which is what most of these experiments use. Even a CGM will not provide the answer. It will show glucose being reduced in the plasma, but does not show where it has gone. Didi it go into the cells, was it stored as glycogen, or was it used directly by the muscles. Or, more importantly, was it filtered out by the kidneys, and simply excreted. I have only seen a couple of experiments that had the correct instrumentation to make the declaration valid, and that was for mainline meds, not supplements or alternative therapies. Even Metformin is as yet unproven against this claim, as far as I can tell, although I believe one test has shown a very small effect in peripheral muscles. I also believe that there are many 'types' of insulin resistance that have different trigger mechanisms, but these tend to be lumped together as ' unable to properly use insulin'
 
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