Clinical Pharmacist and Master’s student in Clinical Pharmacy with research interests in pharmacovigilance, behavioral interventions in mental health, and AI applications in clinical decision support. Experience includes digital health research with Bloomsbury Health (London) and pharmacovigilance practice in patient support programs. Published work covers drug awareness among healthcare providers, postpartum depression management, and patient safety reporting. 
Clinical Pharmacist and Master’s student in Clinical Pharmacy with research interests in pharmacovigilance, behavioral interventions in mental health, and AI applications in clinical decision support. Experience includes digital health research with Bloomsbury Health (London) and pharmacovigilance practice in patient support programs. Published work covers drug awareness among healthcare providers, postpartum depression management, and patient safety reporting. What was reviewed
This review assessed dietary chromium III intake in Norway in relation to health-based guidance values, focusing on whether typical food exposure and plausible supplement exposures could approach a level of concern. The report is a VKM (Norwegian Scientific Committee for Food and Environment) risk-assessment opinion prepared for the Norwegian Food Safety Authority after Norway revoked a former chromium supplement limit (125 µg/day) in May 2017. Because Norway lacks national chromium food-composition and intake data, VKM relied primarily on the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) CONTAM assessment, which compiled large analytical datasets for chromium in foods and paired them with European consumption surveys to estimate chronic exposure. VKM then performed scenario calculations to show how total exposure changes if food supplements contribute 50, 125, 200, or 300 µg chromium per day (and considered a small contribution from chromium-fortified foods). The assessment emphasizes that most chromium in foods and supplements is expected to be trivalent chromium (Cr(III)), while drinking water is often treated as primarily hexavalent chromium (Cr(VI)), a distinction that matters for heavy metal certification, analytical testing, and consumer risk communication.
Who was reviewed
The “population” reviewed was not a newly recruited cohort but rather the age stratified European consumers represented in EFSA’s exposure modeling, which VKM treated as applicable to Norway due to the absence of Norwegian-specific data. The assessment used EFSA’s standard age groups covering individuals above 1 year, including toddlers (1–3 years), other children (3–10 years), adolescents (10–14 and 14–18 years), adults (18–65 years), elderly (65–75 years), and very elderly (≥75 years). VKM’s comparisons to tolerable intake values were anchored to EFSA default body weights for each life stage to translate a tolerable daily intake (TDI) expressed per kilogram body weight into a daily microgram amount. The report also acknowledged uncertainty about whether subpopulations in Norway such as groups with distinct dietary patterns might deviate materially from European averages. For HMTC-style certification, this “reviewed population” framing is important: the conclusions apply best to typical dietary patterns captured in European national surveys, and less confidently to niche, high-intake behaviors (very high supplement use, unusual diets, or product-specific exposures) unless those are explicitly modeled and analytically verified.
Most important findings
For heavy metal programs, the core takeaway is that dietary chromium III intake from food is far below EFSA’s Cr(III) TDI, and even when supplement doses up to 300 µg/day are added, modeled totals still remain well under the TDI across age groups—closest in toddlers at high-percentile intake. VKM also highlighted measurement and modeling uncertainties that directly affect certification decisions (speciation assumptions, left-censored data, and possible chromium migration from stainless steel contact materials).
| Critical point | Details |
|---|---|
| No UL, but a health-based TDI exists | VKM notes no formal tolerable upper intake level (UL) was established for chromium, but EFSA CONTAM derived a TDI of 300 µg/kg bw/day for Cr(III) using chronic animal toxicity data and a large uncertainty factor. |
| Typical food exposure is very low vs TDI | Median dietary intakes reported from EFSA were roughly 28.6–44.0 µg/day in toddlers and 63.0–84.0 µg/day in adults, orders of magnitude below the TDI when expressed as daily totals. |
| Supplement scenarios up to 300 µg/day remain below TDI | Under modeled scenarios adding 50, 125, 200, or 300 µg/day from supplements, total exposure stayed <10% of TDI in all groups except the highest-end toddler scenario, which still remained about 9× below the TDI. |
| High-percentile intakes matter most for certification | For P95 exposure plus a 300 µg/day supplement, VKM’s totals were highest in toddlers (e.g., up to ~379 µg/day upper-bound total), but still far below the toddler TDI daily amount (based on default body weight). |
| Uncertainty flags relevant to HMTC testing | VKM lists major uncertainties: European data representativeness for Norway, regional chromium variation in foods, left-censored analytical results (LB underestimates/UB overestimates), sparse “as-consumed” data, and potential contribution from stainless steel processing/utensils. |
| Speciation is a regulatory weak spot | Exposure modeling assumed chromium in food is Cr(III) and chromium in water is Cr(VI), while VKM stresses the need for better data on Cr(III)/Cr(VI) speciation in foods and water-based products—highly relevant to certification analytics and labeling claims. |
Key implications
For HMTC, dietary chromium III intake evidence supports a risk-based supplement cap framework where products at 50–300 µg/day Cr(III) can be certified with a strong safety margin relative to EFSA’s TDI, but certification should still require dose-accurate labeling, batch verification, and clear differentiation of Cr(III) from Cr(VI). Industry application should prioritize validated analytical methods, including sensitivity around left-censored results and controls for stainless-steel contact contributions. Regulatory impacts center on using conservative TDIs rather than absent ULs, while research gaps include Norwegian intake data, food “as-consumed” measurements, and chromium speciation in water-based foods. Practical recommendations include routine speciation where feasible, tighter QA/QC acceptance criteria, and scenario testing for toddler/high-percentile consumers.
Citation
VKM. Assessment of dietary intake of chromium (III) in relation to tolerable upper intake level. Opinion of the Panel on Nutrition, Dietetic Products, Novel Food and Allergy of the Norwegian Scientific Committee for Food and Environment. VKM Report 2018:06. Oslo, Norway; 2018. ISBN: 978-82-8259-303-8.
Chromium (Cr) is a widely used metal with significant public health implications, especially in its toxic hexavalent form. The HMTC program’s stricter regulations ensure that chromium exposure is minimized, safeguarding consumer health, particularly for vulnerable populations.
