A micro mineral could make all the difference

Dur­ing a Dia­betes Infor­ma­tion and Sup­port group a woman asked me about chromium. A pop­u­lar tele­vi­sion doc­tor spent more than the usual 15 min­utes on this essen­tial micro min­eral dur­ing his show.

I agreed with the super­star physi­cian that the min­eral chromium is impor­tant to the diges­tion and use of car­bo­hy­drate foods and fats. It indi­rectly helps to main­tain the blood glu­cose level and is used for man­ag­ing the symp­toms of uncon­trolled dia­betes and insulin resistance.

Chromium also helps the pro­duc­tion of healthy, help­ful cho­les­terol and can also pre­vent high blood pres­sure. This mini pow­er­house of the human body is very valu­able to keep­ing it in the best shape possible.

I spent a few hours doing online research to learn the dif­fer­ence between var­i­ous forms and struc­tures of chromium. One par­tic­u­lar type is found in var­i­ous food prod­ucts, whereas another form is gen­er­ated through indus­trial pol­lu­tion. One is nec­es­sary for humans and the other is toxic.

My career has been spent con­vinc­ing peo­ple that a bal­anced meal plan of more than five daily serv­ings of fruits and veg­eta­bles is impor­tant to good health. I try to include at least three serv­ings of fruit into my break­fast meal. Lunch and sup­per usu­ally con­tains more than one veg­etable. Healthy snacks of fruits, veg­eta­bles and whole grain prod­ucts sur­round my other meals.

When the woman at the meet­ing wanted to know if she should take chromium cap­sules and asked which kind she should swal­low I began to won­der. I asked her how many fruits and veg­eta­bles she con­sumes in one day. Does she eat whole grain prod­ucts? Or does her meal plan include an abun­dance of processed foods?

Chromium is found nat­u­rally in a vari­ety of foods. The best source of chromium is brewer’s yeast. Two table­spoons of brewer’s yeast will pro­vide plenty of daily chromium. Sweet pota­toes are an excel­lent source as well.

One half cup of cooked corn is an incred­i­ble source of chromium. Whole grains cere­als and breads are power packed full of chromium. Other fruits and veg­eta­bles con­tain­ing this micro min­eral that helps to con­trol blood glu­cose are toma­toes, spinach, broc­coli, onion, gar­lic, dry basil leaves, dark leafy let­tuces, green pep­per, beets, mush­rooms, orange juice, grape juice and bananas.

Most meats and shell­fish con­tain a high amount of chromium. Pro­cess­ing food decreases the chromium in the prod­uct. The closer the food is to the raw form, the more chromium in the prod­uct. For exam­ple, mashed pota­toes made from real pota­toes con­tain more chromium than instant potatoes.

Eat­ing a lot of sugar can deplete the body in chromium. So eat­ing a healthy salad topped off with a candy bar or a sweet bev­er­age like cola or sweet­ened ice tea or cof­fee could defeat the pur­pose of eat­ing salad to increase a chromium level. Good inten­tions could go wrong by sat­is­fy­ing a sweet tooth.

Sweet desserts and bev­er­ages are treats reserved for spe­cial occa­sions when try­ing to con­trol blood glu­coses. Reg­u­larly eat­ing or drink­ing sugar can back­fire with blood glu­cose num­bers out of control.

If uncon­trolled blood sug­ars are your prob­lem exper­i­ment by con­sum­ing high chromium foods and limit the sweets. The blood sugar that you con­trol may be your own.

Bob­bie Ran­dall is a cer­ti­fied dia­betes edu­ca­tor and a reg­is­tered, licensed dietit­ian. She super­vises a dia­betes self-management train­ing pro­gram at Aultman-Orrville Hos­pi­tal, Orrville. Con­tact her at bobbie.randall@aultmanorrville.org or 330–684-4776.

Posted by Bobbie Randall on Mar 13 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.