MAKING AN HONEST EVALUATION OF CHROMIUM PICOLINATE CLAIMS : THE SCIENTIFIC BACKGROUND.

Byline: Marian Burros The New York Times

Chromium picolinate is the hottest dietary supplement on the market. The Federal Trade Commission says that at least 9 million consumers spend $100 million a year on various forms of it.

And no wonder. If half the claims made for it were true, it probably would be as important a discovery as aspirin or penicillin. Or sliced bread.

But for now, the commission contends that none of the claims made for chromium picolinate have been substantiated; one claim, the commission says, is in fact false.

That conclusion led the commission to push for a consent agreement with Nutrition 21, the San Diego company that has exclusive rights to market chromium picolinate in the United States, and with two of the many companies that sell it - Body Gold of La Jolla, Calif., and Universal Merchants Inc. of Los Angeles. Under the consent agreement, which is not an admission of guilt, the companies promised to stop making unsubstantiated claims for their products.

Chromium is an essential trace mineral that is required for normal insulin function. Chromium picolinate is one form of it.

Dr. Victor Moreno, the president of Nutrition 21, said in a telephone interview that until there is scientific evidence that the commission will accept, the company probably will make only one claim: that chromium picolinate may help moderately obese people improve body composition. Moreno acknowledged that such a claim is ``a far cry from what was said before.''

Improving body composition means only that the body loses fat and gains muscle mass, not that there is any weight loss. Until it signed the consent agreement, however, Nutrition 21 had made the following claims, and the other two companies had followed suit with at least some of them, according to FTC documents: that chromium picolinate reduces body fat, causes weight loss without dieting or exercise, builds muscles, increases metabolism, controls appetite, reduces cholesterol, lowers elevated blood sugar levels, can treat and prevent diabetes and can improve normal insulin function.

In the settlement, the commission said that all of these claims were unsubstantiated and deceptive. And the companies' contention that the claims were scientifically proved was ``outright false,'' said Joel Winston, the assistant director of the division of advertising practice at the commission.

One piece of marketing literature from Nutrition 21 was headed: ``Weight loss, fat loss and muscle loss or how to break the string of yo-yo diets.''

Ads for Body Gold called the product ``a powerful weight loss combination.'' An ad for Universal Merchants' Chroma-trim 100, which the ad called ``a sugar-free fat-reducing chewing gum,'' said that the gum would ``decrease appetite (especially sugar cravings).''

Winston said it was important to keep in mind that there is a difference between fat loss and weight loss: ``What the ads said is weight loss, and the studies don't show much for weight loss.''

In fact, if chromium picolinate does what Moreno says it does - increase muscle mass and decrease body fat - that does not necessarily add up to weight loss. In a study to measure the effects of chromium picolinate on body weight and mass, Gilbert R. Kaats of the Health and Medical Research Foundation in San Antonio found that 69 of 219 men and women, or 31.5 percent, dropped out.

The principal reason was the ``relatively slow scale weight loss that occurred with many subjects in this 72-day study,'' Kaats wrote in Current Therapeutic Research last October. And one reason for this is that while there was a loss of body fat, there was also a gain in muscle mass.

``We're not saying that in the future there may not be evidence to support the claims,'' Winston said. ``We are not suggesting that chromium picolinate is worthless,'' just that there is not enough scientific evidence yet to back up claims made for it.

In the settlement with Nutrition 21, the company is required to send certified letters to all of its customers spelling out the details of the consent order.

Winston said that there are many other companies making the same unsubstantiated claims for chromium picolinate but that the commission cannot prosecute them because it does not have the time or the money to do so. But by making an example of these three companies, he added, ``we hope this will send a message to the industry as well as the public.''