Dietary chromium-methionine chelate supplementation and animal performance

Abstract

Chromium has emerged as an essential trace mineral in nutrition. However, it readily causes toxicity because of slightly excessive dose and/or form of chromium supplement. Therefore, developing a noble form of chromium supplement which is capable of not only an increased availability but also a reduced toxicity has been a critical issue in chromium nutrition. Chromium-methionine chelate has been, so far, one of the latest developments in its kind. Although not much information is available for the chromium-methionine chelate, especially in view of animal performances upon dietary supplementation, several studies indicated chromium methionine chelate could be effective to improve meat quality by increasing muscle mass but decreasing body fat. Highly-graded beef was produced by dietary chromium methionine supplementation during fattening stage of Korean native steers. Body muscle was increased in replace of decreasing body fat in both pig and rat that were dietary supplemented with chromium methionine chelate. However, a pig farm study did not show any significant improvement of body gain upon supplementation of chromium methionine. Immune responses of pig and rat were not always dependent upon chromium form but were varied by species. These results suggest there could be a different mode of responses due to species as well as onset time of dietary supplementation of chromium methionine. It is still early to conclude the bio-efficacy of chromium methionine chelate presumably due to its recent appearance into the field. But the chelate is certainly worth more application to animal since it certainly reduced the application level of dietary chromium.