Recommended by Chris Barr

Chris Barr Interview Pt2: Chromium

Chris Barr: Chromium

In Part 2 of this series, I interviewed “NotADoc” Chris Barr on the history and benefits of Chromium.  He explains how it came to be considered an essential nutrient, and goes on to tell us how it can help with blood sugar disorders such as diabetes.  He also tells us why we don’t get enough of it in our food anymore and gives his expert opinion on the best brand of supplement to take and the proper dosage.  So let’s jump right in!

Who is NotADoc (Chris Barr)?

NotADoc is a nutritional historian who has been investigating and applying research in nutrition through five decades. He has been involved with GTF Chromium, Selenium and Silicon research throughout this period of time. NotADoc is the author of two books, NEWtrition & YOU about Chromium “Sparkling health for your life and living!” & Newtrition & YOU about Selenium “One Cancer Answer 100 years and counting”

All 3 of the supplements that we will be discussing as well as other ones recommended by Chris Barr are available in my store under: https://choosetobehealthy.com/pa_brand/chris-barr

Video Highlights:

The History of Chromium

Today we’re going to be talking about Chromium.  In 1959, it was one of the last nutrients to be identified as an essential nutrient.  Until then, it was just used in things like chrome bumpers and faucets and such.  During manufacturing, there was a type of chromium that came through that and was considered a toxic element, and nobody really thought of it as something that was consumable.

Dr. Klaus Schwarz and his assistant Dr. Walter Mertz were engaged in liver studies and determined that the liver would not function without Chromium.  This lead it to be deemed as an essential nutrient.  It had a specific necessity for sugar metabolism.

This lead Dr. Mertz to declare that they found the cause of diabetes.  Chromium was established as essential nutrition-wise for blood sugar metabolism, and diabetes is a disorder of blood sugar metabolism.  It’s actually a cofactor of insulin.  Hardly anybody knows that insulin is a cofactor with this element Chromium.   Insulin is actually a transport mechanism, like a truck or railcar.  The molecule, GTF – or Glucose Tolerance Factor, which is a significantly chromium-contained molecule would be like a dock worker.  The railcar stops and gets unloaded by the workers.  If you don’t have enough dock workers, then you won’t get enough sugar unloaded from the car, and you’ll have diabetes.  Meaning that if you don’t get enough Chromium (enough workers), then you won’t get enough sugar.  This is why Dr. Mertz got so excited.

There was another doctor in the same year, in 1959, Dr. Henry Alfred Schroeder that had set up a trace mineral laboratory.  He is one of the most published scientists of the 20th century even though he isn’t very well known.  Everybody knows that salt causes high blood pressure – well that came from him.

While he was working with NASA, he was setting up a trace mineral lab, which sounds impressive for nutrition, but that wasn’t his purpose.  He was a toxicologist.  He started with three main minerals, Cadmium, Lead, and Chromium.  When he was setting up his lab, it was just prior to Chromium being established as a nutrient.  At that time, hexavalent Chromium was known to be toxic and was regulated.

Schroeder was doing experiments with those minerals and was doing tests on animals.  While he was testing on the lab animals with Chromium, he set a new record for longevity.  The ones that were taking it were living longer.  He was looking for bad effects, but those results got him to take more interest in nutrition.  He even went on to write a book, “Trace Elements and Man.”  He wrote about how excited he was at that of the work of Dr. Schwarz and Dr. Mertz.  For 10 years they

He even went on to write a book in 1975, “Trace Elements and Man.”  He wrote about how excited he was at that of the work of Dr. Schwarz and Dr. Mertz.  Because what they discovered and their excitement was that for 10 years they tried to work with Chromium with the benefits they saw with it and it didn’t work.  At the time, the only form of Chromium available was Chromium Chloride, and the absorption rate was less than 1/2 of 1%.  So they found that it didn’t work except in a food form.

The truth is that all nutrients found in food are better in a food form.  Sometimes the difference between food forms and other forms is greater than it is in others, but this difference is the greatest with Chromium.  So they figured out that wouldn’t work and they started working on how to culture it.  It took them the better part of 10 years to do that.

Schroeder received the highest award from the American Heart Association and was renowned for his discoveries around salt and high blood pressure. Many of the medical protocols we still follow today are based on Schroeder’s research.  He wrote in 1975 that they cause of heart disease was a lack of Chromium.  I’m here to tell you that he overstated the point… it’s the predominate aspect, but not the only cause.  He wrote how excited he was that Schwarz and Mertz were close to perfected Chromium and how it would impact heart disease.

Why We Don’t Get Enough In Our Diet Today

That’s where I came in in the late 70’s.  At the time, the average person wasn’t aware of this research.  Almost everybody in my family suffered from diabetes because it runs in families.  It runs in families because families eat the same way.

Almost everybody in my family suffered from diabetes because it runs in families.  It runs in families because families eat the same way.  It’s dietary causes like refined bleached white flour and refined bleached white sugar that cause it.  Sugar cane is very rich in Chromium.  When they make white sugar, 99% of the Chromium is removed.  Whole grains are rich in Chromium, but when they refine it into white bleached flour, 91% is removed.

So literally the most removed nutrient from the foods most Americans most commonly consume is Chromium according to the most recent survey from the Department of Commerce.  So why is diabetes always on the rise, because Americans started switching to refined flours and sugars for more than 100 years at a rate of about 10lb per person per year.  And it’s increased each decade, the last figure I saw was that we were consuming more than 150lbs of refined, bleached, flours and sugars a year per person.

When you eat that way, as most Americans do, you not only loose Chromium in your diet, but your body starts consuming it’s reserves in your tissues.  Schroeder was so excited by these findings that he did a tissue study.

Schroeder was so excited by these findings that he did a tissue analysis of Americans compared to Southeast Asians, those in the Middle East, and those in Africa that were eating traditional diets.  He found that in 1970, teenagers had a little bit of a drop.  But in Americans at the age of 40, almost a quarter of those studied had no detectable Chromium, whereas other cultures had only a slight drop at that age.

What is the Best Supplement to Take?

When I came along and started looking at this food form of Chromium and how much better it was utilized… 20x-50x better absorption.  Some of the products on the market flash on their label that they have 600x absorption, but 600% of 0.3 is only a little under 2% absorption.

This is why I prefer Innate Response GTF-Chromium over other brands.  It’s a whole-food brand.  The science is there and they take the extra steps in the growth process where other companies are cutting steps.  About 18 years ago I saw a comparative from a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.  He compared the various types in the marketplace, and he found that the acceptance in the human body in the Innate version was twice that of New Chapter.

I later saw New Chapter running ads that their version was found to be 60x more potent than competitors.  But they were comparing against synthetic.  The Innate was twice what they were, so they didn’t mention it.

We’ve since found that Chromium is good for more than blood sugar alone.  It enhances the metabolic efficiency of protein metabolism, of lipid (or fat) metabolism, and carbohydrate metabolism.  In other words, everything you eat.

How Much Should I Take?

Some of the human studies done by the U.S. government in the 1960’s saw that consuming 205-290 micrograms daily “maintained Chromium equilibrium.”  Which in plain language means that was how much it took so that you didn’t loose more than you used.

Ever since I saw that back in the late 1970’s, I’ve told people to take 100 micrograms three times a day.  I’ve also said not to stack them and try to take them all at once.  You don’t eat a day’s worth of food at once because you won’t get as much out of it.  Some nutrients can be stacked, but not Chromium.  Your body can only use so much at one time.  If you take them all at once, you’ll only get about 1.5 out of it instead of getting the value of all 3.  By spreading it out of the day, you’ll absorb it all.

If someone has issues, they might consider taking one 4 times a day.  This would include someone who is diabetic or pre-diabetic.

Learn More

Chris has more information in his book Newtrition and You: Chromium that will go deeper than we went into our interview today.  So I definitely recommend reading it if you want to learn more.