A FOOD supplement often used by bodybuilders has been implicated in a health scare. Fruit flies given equivalent doses of chromium picolinate developed DNA mutations that affected their offspring over four successive generations. The supplement, which is put into sports drinks and foods, is thought to help build muscle and destroy fat.
Female flies bred from males that had been fed the supplement were up to 12 per cent more likely than controls to be sterile. 鈥淚 personally wouldn鈥檛 take it,鈥� says John Vincent at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, whose team鈥檚 study is published in Proceedings of the National Academy Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0636646100). Vincent says that potentially safer alternatives are available, such as chromium chloride.