Trace Elements · EU Law
The daily reference figure for adults stands at 40 micrograms — one forty-thousandth of a gram. This page collects what chemistry has written down about that tiny quantity and which single sentence the European Union has authorized to go with it.
To the ExcerptPlacing It
Most authorized statements in the European Union name an organ, a tissue or one particular bodily step. With the trace element chromium it works differently. The authorized sentence speaks of nutrients in the plural and packs carbohydrates, fats and protein into one formulation instead of picking out any one of those three.
Chemically the three have little to do with one another. They differ in how their molecules are built, in the pace at which they are worked through and in the organs involved. What links them is mainly the order of magnitude in which they land on the plate: they are counted in grams. The reference figure for chromium, by contrast, sits at forty micrograms, a minute fraction of that.
It is exactly this mismatch that Aegirinello follows up. On this page stand the chemical quirks of the element, the route through the gut wall and the wording as the European Commission carries it in its register. The excerpt takes the same themes further and lays tables alongside them.
Behind the Figure
Anyone hunting for solid numbers on chromium runs into a peculiarity fast: research has had more trouble measuring the element than describing it. Three points explain why that is so.
In foods and in authorized supplements chromium is present in trivalent form. Such an ion gathers six binding partners around itself in watery surroundings, held in an even spatial arrangement. What stands out is the pace: while many metal ions swap their partners within a fraction of a second, this form needs hours for the same move. Chemically it therefore behaves unusually quietly. The hexavalent compounds that turn up in certain industrial processes belong to an entirely different class of substance and are not found in foodstuffs.
Right up into the 1980s, published chromium figures for blood, urine and foods came out far too high. The reason lay not in biology but at the workbench: needles, blades, centrifuge cups and stirring rods are usually made of chromium-bearing steel and shed traces into the sample on contact. With an element measured in the microgram range, that much abrasion is already enough to lift the result several times over. Only with plastic and platinum instruments, cleaned rooms and more sensitive equipment did the reported values drop by a whole order of magnitude.
Of what arrives with a meal, the small intestine takes up only a low single-digit percentage, and that share falls further the more is fed in. Whatever reaches the blood attaches there to transferrin — the same carrier protein the body uses to move iron around the circulation. Almost nothing is laid down in store; the kidneys carry the greater part back out with the urine within a few hours. A single blood value therefore says little about how well one person is provided for, which is why reading it belongs with qualified staff.
On the basis of an opinion from the European Food Safety Authority, the European Commission carries a single sentence for this trace element: Chromium contributes to normal macronutrient metabolism. EU-authorized wording · Regulation (EU) No 432/2012. It records a process that takes place anyway once intake is covered. An amount above the reference figure, one named enzyme or one particular organ do not appear in it.
At a Glance
All three panels stand open next to one another — nothing unfolds, nothing is fetched later.
Atomic number 24, a transition metal from the sixth subgroup. The human body holds only a few milligrams in total, spread across liver, kidneys, spleen and bone tissue.
The organism cannot make the element itself. It has to come in with food on a regular basis, in amounts that no kitchen scale can show.
Annex XIII carries the EU reference intake of 40 µg a day for adults set by Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011. That figure appears on European packaging so that contents can be compared; it is not an intake cut to the measure of one person.
Contributions worth naming come, among others, from:
One single formulation came out of the review by the European Food Safety Authority. It may be neither added to nor rewritten:
Chromium contributes to normal macronutrient metabolism. EU-authorized wording · Regulation (EU) No 432/2012 · Register entries 260, 401, 4665, 4666 and 4667
Digital Issue
The excerpt gathers the measuring history of the element, the tables on foods and the full authorized text from the EU register into one continuous document. After the purchase the file is ready to download; we ask for no user account.
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The texts on these pages place published research and applicable European food law side by side. They make no diagnosis, set out no intake amount and address no particular person. Anyone with lasting complaints, anyone who would like their own intake looked at, or anyone already using preparations should talk it over with a physician or at a pharmacy.
Food supplements do not step in for a varied diet and a generally sound way of living. The daily amount stated on the pack should not be exceeded. Products of this kind belong out of the reach of small children. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
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