The bioavailability of chromium from Cr-picolinate (CrPic(3)) and Cr-chloride (CrCl(3)) was studied in rats using (51)Cr-labelled compounds and whole-body-counting. The intestinal absorption of Cr was twice as high from CrPic(3) (1.16% vs 0.55%) than from CrCl(3), however most of the absorbed (51)Cr from CrPic(3) was excreted into the urine within 24 h. After i.v. or i.p. injection, the whole-body retention curves fitted well to a multiexponential function, demonstrating that plasma chromium is in equilibrium with three pools. For CrPic(3), a large pool exists with a very rapid exchange (T (1/2) =
