TOXICOLOGICAL PROFILE FOR CHROMIUM - Davidborowski.com

CHROMIUM 2142. HEALTH EFFECTSChromium(III) is an essential nutrient required for maintaining normal glucose metabolism. The NRCestablished estimated safe and adequate daily dietary intakes (ESADDIs) of 10–80 µg/day for childrenaged 1–3 years; 30–120 µg/day for children aged 4–6 years, and 50–200 µg/day for children aged 7 yearsor older (NRC 1989). These recommendations were derived by extrapolating the adult ESADDI value of50–200 µg/day on the basis of expected food intake.There is a limited amount of information available on the toxicity of chromium in children. Most of theavailable data comes from several case reports of children ingesting lethal concentrations ofchromium(VI). A variety of systemic effects were observed in a 22-month-old who accidentally ingestedan unknown amount of sodium dichromate (Ellis et al. 1982), a 1-year-old who ingested an unknownamount of ammonium dichromate (Reichelderfer 1968), a 17-year-old who intentionally ingested 29 mgchromium(VI)/kg as potassium dichromate (Clochesy 1984; Iserson et al. 1983), and a 14-year-old whoingested 7.5 mg chromium(VI)/kg as potassium dichromate (Kaufman et al. 1970). The effects includedpleural effusion, bronchopneumonia, hypoxic changes in the myocardium, decreased blood pressure andcardiac output, abdominal pain and vomiting, gastrointestinal burns and hemorrhage, and liver and kidneynecrosis. An enlarged brain and cerebral edema were also observed in the 14-year-old (Kaufman et al.1970). These effects are similar to effects observed in adults who have ingested lethal doses and are partof the sequelae leading to death.A number of additional health effects have been observed in adults exposed to chromium (primarilychromium(VI)) at work. The primary targets appear to be the respiratory tract, gastrointestinal tract,hematological system, liver, and kidneys; an increased cancer risk has also been observed. Dermalcontact in chromium sensitized individuals can lead to an allergic type dermatitis. In the absence of datato the contrary, it is likely that these organs/systems will also be sensitive targets in children. There isinsufficient information to determine whether the susceptibility of children would differ from that ofadults.Although there are no human studies that examined developmental end points, animal studies haveconsistently shown that chromium, particularly chromium(VI), is a developmental toxicant. The onlyinhalation developmental toxicity study available is a 3-generation study that did not find developmentaleffects following maternal exposure to 0.2 mg chromium(VI)/m 3 as sodium dichromate (Glaser et al.1984). A number of developmental effects have been reported in oral studies involving maternalexposure to $46 mg chromium(VI)/kg/day as potassium dichromate (Al-Hamood et al. 1998; Junaid et al.1996b; Trivedi et al. 1989). The observed effects included increases in post-implantation losses, gross