Maintaining a balanced diet is essential for your health. A balanced diet can help you stay in good shape and supply your body with essential nutrients. Chromium is a micronutrient that assists in the metabolic process, but is often overlooked.
Chromium plays a vital role in helping you lose weight. Let's take a deeper dive into what chromium is and how it can help you reach your goal weight.
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What Is Chromium?
Chromium is an essential trace mineral your body needs to help metabolize macronutrients such as carbs, fat, and protein.
Chromium occurs naturally in two forms; hexavalent and trivalent. Trivalent chromium is commonly found in food. Hexavalent, which is toxic, should never be ingested.
Trivalent chromium further appears in various forms, including:
- High-chromium yeast
- Chromium citrate
- Chromium picolinate
- Chromium nicotinate
- Chromium chloride
The above forms of chromium are excellent for your diet—except for chromium chloride, which the body struggles to break down.
How Chromium Supports Weight Loss
Chromium is an essential mineral as it is important during the weight-loss process. Without it, your body won't effectively shed off unnecessary weight.
Chromium supplements work by helping insulin’s function. Insulin absorbs and stores glucose synthesized from carbs, proteins, and fats. If you're the kind of person trying to lose weight but haven’t seen results, give chromium supplements a try.
Possible Side Effects of Chromium Supplements
There are few known chromium supplement side effects, however, some have reported muscle problems, pain, and bloating.
Some medications interact with chromium supplements, which may affect how you absorb or excrete chromium. Some of those medications include:
- Proton pump inhibitors such as omeprazole, pantoprazole, esomeprazole.
- H2 blockers such as famotidine, nizatidine, and cimetidine.
- Corticosteroids
- Antacids
What To Look For in a Chromium Supplement
Several supplements contain chromium, including multivitamins. If you take a men's multivitamin daily, you're likely already getting chromium.
To find an effective chromium supplement, look for supplements made using chromium picolinate or chromium nicotinate. These two forms allow the body to absorb higher levels of chromium in comparison to the other forms.
Several Mdrive products contain chromium picolinate, including:
- Mdrive Prime
- Mdrive Boost & Burn
- Mdrive Elite
- Mdrive Start
- Mdrive Lean
- Mdrive Multi
For more tips about living a healthy lifestyle and what products can help, check out our articles on The Driven blog.