鉻是人體必要的微量礦物質,可以改善葡萄糖耐受度,並對醣類及脂肪的代謝及體內能量恆定扮演重要的角色。Vincent(1999)及Pechova and Pavlata(2009)的研究皆指出肥胖、糖尿病等代謝相關疾病及心血管疾病與鉻缺乏有關。鉻為胰島素的協同因子,能增進胰島素作用,已經被用來治療糖尿病;另外鉻能促進醣類轉換成能量,促使胺基酸進到肌肉細胞、減少肌肉蛋白分解而有利於增加肌肉量,並促進脂質的分解作用,進而減少體脂肪,因此陸續有些研究探討鉻的增補與身體組成及運動表現的關係。過去以吡啶甲酸鉻進行長期或單次增補的研究結果大都顯示吡啶甲酸鉻無法促進運動表現,但在有限的以氧協同多重菸鹼酸鉻做為單次增補物之研究中,則分別觀察到具有促進有氧及無氧運動表現的結果,可能與氧協同多重菸鹼酸鉻在人體內有較高的生物利用率有關,但仍需要更完善的研究設計來加以釐清。
Chromium is an essential trace minerals for human, it can improve glucose tolerance, and also play an important role in carbohydrate and fat metabolism and homeostasis. Vincent (1999) and Pechova & Pavlata (2009) pointed out that obesity, diabetes and other metabolic diseases and cardiovascular disease that are related to the lack of chromium. Chromium is cofactor of insulin, it can improve insulin action, has been used to as a treatment of diabetes. Supplementation of chromium can promote the glucose into energy, to promote amino acids into muscle cells, reduce muscle protein breakdown, and increase muscle mass then increased fat deposition in the the decomposition of lipid organization effectiveness, thereby reducing body fat, so some studies show that after another supplementation of chromium, and body composition and exercise performance relationship. Long-term and acute effect studies that using chromium picolinate point out the supplementation can't improve exercise performance, but some acute effect studies show that using NBC for supplement improves aerobic and anaerobic exercise performance, may be related to higher bioavailability in oxygen-coordinated niacin-bound chromium, and still need better study design to clarify.