EFSA: Scientific Opinion on the safety of trivalent chromium as a nutrient added for nutritional purposes to foodstuffs for particular nutritional uses and foods intended for the general population (including food supplements)
Question number: EFSA-Q-2009-00870 Adopted: 10 November 2010
Summary
Following a request from the European Commission, the Panel on Food Additives and Nutrient Sources added to Food was asked to deliver a scientific opinion re-evaluating the safety of chromium(III) as a nutrient added to food for particular nutritional uses (PARNUTS) and foods intended for the general population (including food supplements).
In previous opinions the Panel noted that recent reviews and evaluations of chromium(III) point at conflicting outcomes of genotoxicity assays and report diverging views and conclusions on the consequences of this genotoxicity issue for the ultimate safety assessment of chromium(III).
Therefore, the present opinion focuses especially on the genotoxicity of chromium(III), the consequences of this genotoxicity issue for the ultimate safety assessment of chromium(III), and on any new data on this issue that have emerged since previous evaluations. The Scientific Committee on Food (SCF) issued an opinion on the Tolerable Upper Intake Level (UL) of chromium(III) and concluded that limited data from subchronic, chronic and reproductive toxicity studies on soluble chromium(III) salts and the available human data do not give clear information on the dose-response relationships, and that therefore a UL could not be derived.
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