رشروشه Admin
عدد الرسائل : 4030 العمر : 36 العمل/الترفيه : المدير السٌّمعَة : 4 نقاط : 982 تاريخ التسجيل : 02/04/2008
| موضوع: Diabetes Mellitus - part 2 الجمعة 17 أكتوبر 2008, 22:18 | |
| Safety of Chromium
Chromium comes in various forms. The dietary form is called chromium tri-valent. This is non-toxic and necessary for essential bodily functions. Chromium in its hexa-valent form is used in industries and that is highly toxic.
It is extremely difficult to poison laboratory animals with oral dietary tri-valent forms of chromium. For example, cats fed 1,000 mg of trivalent chromium per day showed no signs of toxicity. The equivalent daily dose for a 150 lb person would be approximately 35,000 mg per day or 3.5 million mcg per day. In terms of the number of 200 mcg tablets, this would be 175,000 tablets per day for a human.
"Trivalent chromium has such a low order of toxicity that deleterious effects from excessive intake of this form of chromium do not occur readily. Trivalent chromium becomes toxic only at extremely high amounts - chromium then acts as a gastric irritant rather than as a toxic element interfering with essential metabolism or biochemistry." Modern Nutrition In Health and Disease, Eighth Ed., 1994. Shils, Olson and Shike, eds.
The safety issue had been questioned by a study published in December 1995, which attempted to link chromosomal damage in the test tube to oral supplementation of chromium picolinate. Researchers in this study added unnaturally high amounts of chromium picolinate to cultured Chinese hamster ovarian cancer. Some of these cells showed chromosomal damage. This was not particularly surprising, since this concentration applied was 3,000 times the blood level of people who are ingesting chromium picolinate as supplements. It is interesting to note that another form of chromium, chromium polynicotinate, did not have this toxic effect.
It is important to note that very few essential minerals tested in this way would be found to be without toxicity. For example, merely doubling the blood concentration of the mineral calcium is fatal to humans.
A further study was conducted by Dr. Richard Anderson, the lead scientist for trace minerals at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Human Nutrition Research Center, Beltsville, Md., His research team fed rats a stock diet . Added to the diet was 0, 5, 25, 50 or 100 micrograms (mcg) of chromium per gram of feed for a period of six months. The supplements were added to the feed in the form of chromium chloride or chromium picolinate. The highest supplemented level measured approximately 1500 mcg/day per kilogram of body weight. Translated to a human equivalent would mean that a 150 lb (70 kg) individual would have to consume 1.05 million micrograms, or more than 5,000 tablets containing 200 mcg of chromium each daily for six months to equal the rat intake. This study found no harmful effects in animals supplemented with two widely used forms of dietary chromium: chromium chloride and chromium picolinate
Forms of Chromium
There are various forms of dietary chromium. These vary in bioavailability (absorption and retention) and biological activity (ability to potentate and harmonize insulin). Inorganic chromium such as chromium chloride is unfortunately poorly absorbed (0.5-2%) and has little effect on insulin because it must first be converted into a biologically active form, which the body has a limited ability to do.
The two most popular forms of organic chromium are niacin-bound chromium (also called chromium polynicotinate) and chromium picolinate. Although picolinate and polynicotinate sound alike, there are significant differences between the two compounds.
Chromium Polynicotinate is actually a family of niacin-bound chromium compounds. Niacin-bound chromium strongly potentiates insulin - chromium's most vital function - while chromium picolinate is less effective comparatively speaking.
Niacin-bound chromium such as chromium polynciotinate is also more bioavailable than chromium picolinate. An Animal study at the University of California found that chromium polynicotinate is better absorbed and retained up to 311% better than chromium picolinate and 672% better than chromium chloride. Such high bioavailability means that chromium polynicotinate can deliver more of the benefits that chromium has to offer.
B. VITAMIN C:
As a strong antioxidant, this vitamin enhances capillary strength, which improves blood flow. Dietary sources including leafy greens, broccoli, peppers, oranges, and grapefruit are the primary source of dietary vitamin C, followed by commercial supplements.
Vitamin C administration has beneficial effects on sugar and fat metabolism in NIIDM. In a randomized double-blind cross-over study, in which 56 diabetic patients participated, it has been established that a supplementation of high doses of ascorbic acid (2 grams a day) markedly improves the blood sugar regulation in patients with NIDDM. It was recorded that the vitamin C supplementation in the NIDDM group resulted in a statistically significant decrease of the fasting blood sugar of 10.1 to 9.1 mmol/liter. In this group the vitamin C supplement also succeeded in lowering the level of LDL cholesterol and of triglycerides in the blood. The greater the amount of vitamin C taken, the greater reduction in LDL cholesterol and plasma free radicals. The plasma free radicals are also lower compared to the placebo group. This was reported in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition (Aug. 1995).
Vitamin C also reduces the potential of complications arising from persistent high sugar environment in the body. Specifically, vitamin C prevents accumulation of sorbitol (a sugar equivalent) in cells and protect against most complications resulting from oxidation. A large population based study found that patients with high blood levels of Vitamin C had a lower HbA1C.
Furthermore, patients with diabetes have low levels of Vitamin C in their cells, which can result in impaired wound healing. High dose supplements have been shown to prevent sorbitol accumulation and glycosilation of proteins, both of which are important factors in the development of diabetic complications such as cataracts. 1 to 2 gram daily of Vitamin C is recommended for diabetic patients | |
|