Chromium eficiency is a disorder that results from an insufficient dietary intake of chromium. If such a deficiency ever occurs in people eating a normal diet is debated, and clear cases of deficiency have only been observed in hospital patients who were fed defined liquid diets intravenously for long periods of time. Although chromium is an essential trace element in humans the basis for this need is not fully understood, since no chromium-containing biomolecules with beneficial effects have been characterized.