Do people with chromium deficiencies always show diabetic marks in labwork?
Thursday, February 9th, 2012 at
7:33 pm
I know chromium is needed for glucose absoption, so what would happen to a person lacking chromium who eats a diet high in simple sugars?
Might they be diagnosed with diabetes or is that not the case? Also, would these people not be thin as a rail?
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You’ve sort of answered your own question. You know chromium is needed for glucose absorption, so it’s a fairly simple conclusion to say that someone deficient in chromium is going to have high blood sugar if they’re consuming abnormally high amounts of simple sugars. By the way, complex carbs cause the same effect since they are converted to simple sugars during digestion. Developing (type two) diabetes is a slow, complex series of occurrences in the body, so to answer your last two questions would be difficult if not impossible.
Chromium deficiency is hard to prove, but when chromium was not added to the stomach tube feedings of some patients, they did begin to exhibit signs of insulin resistance, an early sign of type 2 diabetes. Now chromium is added to the formula and the problem is solved.
People who eat large amounts of simple sugars inhibit their ability to use chromium, so the problem seems to be that a person who eats a diet high in simple sugars will then lack chromium. And those same people may not be eating the things high in chromium either, things like broccoli.
Those people who have real chromium deficiency might be diagnosed with diabetes because chromium helps the body use insulin, especially if there are other things going on as well. But your chromium levels could be fine and you’d still get type 2 diabetes if other factors are present.
Your hypothesis about the people being as thin as a rail would have to be checked by finding people who have this deficiency but are not diabetic. Type 2 diabetics and people who eat lots of sugar tend to be overweight because the sugar they eat is being stored instead of used.
Interesting question. Hope this helps you. Take care.