The Benefits and Risks of Chromium

Chromium is an essential trace mineral that can improve insulin sensitivity and enhance protein, carbohydrate and lipid metabolism. (1)

The following are good sources:

– Broccoli: 1 cup contains 22 mcg

– Grape juice: 1 cup contains 8 mcg

– Turkey breast: 3 ounces contains 2 mcg

– English muffin: one whole wheat muffin contains 4 mcg

– Potatoes, mashed: I cup contains 3 mcg

– Green beans: 1 cup contains 2 mcg

– Red wine: 5 ounces contains between 1 and 13 mcg

Chromium picolinate is a popular supplement often marketed to those wanting to build muscle or lose weight. Some body builders and athletes take it to enhance performance and increase energy. Studies have shown mixed results for this and other supplements owing to the absence of any verified biological role, the expense of the supplements and the complex effects of their use.

While on the topic of ingesting chromium, here is one you will not believe. Pope Pius XII, head of the Catholic Church during World War II, was convinced that his gums were going soft and could not be reassured by the appropriate specialists. He consulted an obscure Roman dentist who prescribed chromic acid.

In time, he was to swallow sufficient quantities of the substance to cause esophageal complications that probably led to extended bouts of hiccups that plagued him day and night and eventually became chronic. (3)

Electroplated Chromium

Electroplating is a general name for processes that produce a metal coating on a solid substrate through the reduction of cations of that metal by means of an electric current. Electroplated chromium parts can be decorative, provide corrosion resistance, increase surface hardness, and rank among the most important plated metals that are used almost exclusively as the final deposit on parts.

Without the physical properties offered by electroplated chromium deposits, the service life of most parts would be much shorter due to wear, corrosion, and the like. (4)

A long time ago (1950s and 1960s) chromium plated bumpers on cars were the rage and its worth looking back at those years. No styling innovation seemed more emblematic of the golden age of the automobile industry than the jutting, thrusting, and chromed fins that spouted on the front and rear fenders of automobiles.

The fins grew both in nonfunctional size and lethal potential, reaching their peak in 1959, then shrunk under critical scorn and the need for novelty until they disappeared in the mid-1960s. That tail fins were deadly weapons mattered not at all. The claim was that a car should be exciting and tail fins appeared to provide excitement. (5)

Hinkley, California and Erin Brockovich

When Erin Brockovich, an environmental activist, shook down Pacific Gas & Electric for $333 million for allegedly poisoning a community with hexavalent chromium and causing cancer and all sorts of other health problems, Julia Roberts portrayed the protagonist in a sensational blockbuster movie. It is unlikely, however, that Hollywood will be filming a sequel.

Why? Because not only was Ms. Brockovich wrong, but the State of California has now partially repudiated what she fought for. (6)

The claim was that a cluster of cancer and other diseases in the small town of Hinkley, California was the result of groundwater contamination by hexavalent chromium.

There were multiple problems with this argument. First, a cluster of cases is not necessarily indicative of anything. By sheer chance alone, patients with particular diseases, even rare ones, can occasionally be found in close proximity to one another. Second, an epidemiological survey found no extra cases of cancer in Hinkley than what normally would be expected. (7)

Third, while inhaled hexavalent chromium is linked to lung cancer, there is no evidence that ingesting tiny amount of hexavalent chromium is harmful. (2)

So why did PG&E settle with the plaintiffs if there was no compelling scientific evidence to show that the myriad of symptoms suffered by the inhabitants of Hinkley were linked to chromium? Because the company was painfully aware that such cases are often decided on the basis of emotional arguments instead of hard science. (2)

It goes without saying that Hollywood will not make a sequel to Erin Brockovich about how a scientifically untrained legal clerk bamboozled America with junk science. Nor will Pacific Gas & Electric be reimbursed the $333 million that was stolen from it.

Ten years after the movie, a study showed that the cancer rate in Hinkley was actually lower than expected (although not statistically significant) during that time (1996-2008). Based on the study alone, a more ‘accurate’ title would have been “Chromium-6 in drinking water prevents cancer.” (6)

Chromium in Coal Ash

Hexavalent chromium is a handy weapon in radical environmentalists’ war on coal, because it is found in fly ash from coal-fired generating plants, and many people are easily terrified by ‘detectable’ levels of strange sounding chemicals. The chemical comes not just from coal fly ash, but from natural rock formations across the US. (7)

Studies have found that hexavalent chromium in water is safe even at 100 ppb or higher. One paper concluded that regularly drinking water with 210 ppb of Cr-6 poses no health risk. A 2016 Duke University study found that hexavalent chromium is prevalent in many North Carolina surface and ground waters.

Some comes from coal ash deposits, but much is leached from igneous and other rocks found throughout the Piedmont region of Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia.

Chromite-rich regions in California and parts of Mexico and Italy beyond the reach of industrial contamination are at high risk for natural hexavalent chromium generation. Chromite in certain rocks and soils can react with birnessite, a manganese-containing mineral often found in weathered rocks and soils, to produce hexavalent chromium.

Researchers reported that within 100 days, chromite and birnessite could generate hexavalent chromium at concentrations above the World Health Organization’s limit for drinking water, which is 50 micrograms per liter. (8)

Some final observations:

– 25 percent of total chromium emissions comes from fossil fuel combustion

– hexavalent chromium in groundwater is converted the trivalent chromium

– hexavalent chromium has never been shown to be carcinogenic when dissolved in drinking water

– no data show hexavalent chromium to be carcinogenic by oral route of exposure, although you should not ingest chromic acid like Pope Pius XII did

– human immersion in hexavalent chromium causes no problems

References

1. Megan Ware, “The benefits and risks of chromium,” medicalnewstoday.com, May 22, 2017

2. Joe Schwarcz, “Erin Brockovich story largely fiction,” quackwatch.org, February 19, 2004

3. John Cornwell, “Hitler’s Pope, (New York, Penguin Books, 2008), 355

4. Nenad V. Mandich and Donald L. Snyder, “Electrodeposition of Chromium,” in Modern Electroplating, Mordechay Schlesinger and Milan Paunovic Editors, (Hoboken, New Jersey, John Wiley & Sons, 2010)

5. George W. Walker, “The Cellini of Chrome,” Time Magazine, November 4, 1957

6. Alex Berezow, “California repudiates Erin Brockovich in hexavalent chromium,” acsh.org, August 2, 2017

7. Chad Thompson et al., “A chronic oral reference dose for hexavalent chromium-induced intestinal cancer,” Journal of Applied Toxicology, 34(5), May 2014

8. “On the rocks,” Science News, 171, 254, April 21, 2007

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