Dear Stuart,

Personally, I see no reason why chromium should be taken in the kind of amounts that are being recommended by the various hawkers of chromium products. The research behind its use in weight loss is not very good (so it helps 18 year-old high school football players to gain a slight bit of muscle mass and lose a bit of fat; What does this have to do with the millions of obese middle aged, sedentary people who are taking it to "burn off weight".

Picolenic acid is a binding ligand which is commonly used in laboratories to introduce carcinogens into cell cultures. Who is to say that it can't do the same in people taking humungous doses of chromium picolenate?

GTF is found in foods in trace amounts, as is chromium. When people are told to take macro amounts of what is a normally a micro nutrient in nature, I get nervous. Also, I get repulsed at the idea that so many obese people get the message that the solution to their problems is in a bottle.

Peter