Furthermore, there are no published data on the effects of maternal chromium supplementation on the breastfeeding infant. Although there are no official recommendations for chromium supplementation of breastfeeding mothers, many such mothers choose to take chromium. If so, it seems advisable to stay well within the recommended safe and adequate range of 50 to 200 micrograms per day. These researchers used cultured Chinese hamster ovarian cancer cells to which they directly added unnaturally high amounts of chromium compounds, including chromium picolinate. Data from U. S. Government sources show that the great majority of Americans get less chromium in their daily diets than the amount recommended by nutrition experts.
Few foods are rich sources of chromium in the Western diet.
The best food sources are organ meats, mushrooms, wheat germ, broccoli, brewer's yeast and processed meats. While trivalent chromium works with insulin to move glucose into cells, we currently do not know how many other critical actions of insulin require chromium to function. At regular intervals during the study the rats were weighed and blood was taken for laboratory tests. There were no differences in any of the measurements or examinations between the various groups. The investigators were blinded as to which group the animals were in when the measurements and evaluations were performed.