Chromium picolinate benefitting from EFSA quality seal of approval

18-Jul-2011 - Last updated on 02-Aug-2011 at 09:10 GMT

Related tags Urinary tract infection

Yes to quality

High quality chromium picolinate, the blood glucose controlling mineral form last year approved for use in foods in the European Union by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), is benefitting from the approval that backed high quality forms of the synthetically produced substance, a supplier has said.

That opinion, which can be found here, referenced potential carcinogenic properties of low-purity chromium picolinate, but said that material produced by means such as those used by the US petitioner for the review, Nutrition 21, would not face such issues.

“High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) analysis has been used to confirm that the salt is manufactured to >95% purity,” EFSA wrote in the opinion from December last year.

The absence of potential carcinogens was, EFSA continued, “confirmed for potassium chromium sulphate which is the starting material used for the manufacture of chromium picolinate.”

It concluded that, “chromium picolinate as a source of chromium in PARNUTS and foods intended for the general population (fortified foods and food supplements) would not be of concern, provided that the amount of total chromium does not exceed 250 μg/day, the value established by the WHO for supplemental intake of chromium that should not be exceeded.”

Sandrine Cuisenier, the marketing manager at French supplier Ingredia, the European licensee for Nutrition 21’s Chromax, said the ingredient and its manufacturing methods had become the reference standard for EFSA and Europe, in the face of potentially harmful material coming onto market from other sources.

“There is a lot of material that comes from China and India and the purity is very low,” she told this publication. “There can be toxicity problems That is why EFSA uses Chromax as the standard for chromium picolinate.”

She said lab testing conducted by her firm, Nutrition21 and others had confirmed this was the case for the material that often sells at ten times less than its own.

Claims

The company was working on a health claim submission for Chromax, she affirmed, along with one for its lactose ingredient Lactium and cranberry version, Cranmax.

Fellow French supplier Diana Nautrals has submitted an article 14 urinary tract infection (UTI) claim that is being assessed by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) health claims panel.