Category: Cardiovascular disease

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Daily intakes of selenium

Dietary intakes of selenium vary considerably from person to person and region to region. Selenium supplements are necessary to raise selenium status sufficiently to prevent oxidative damage to the cells, to improve immune function, and to reduce the risk of cancer and heart disease.

How much selenium from food and supplements do we need on a daily basis?  Which bio-markers of optimal selenium status seem to be most useful to answer this question?  Dr. Rachel Hurst and Dr. Susan J. Fairweather-Tait, Norwich Medical School, United Kingdom, and their colleagues set out to find answers.    The design of their study is very interesting.

They enrolled 119 healthy British men and women aged 50 – 64 years in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study that lasted 12 weeks [Hurst]. They excluded the following persons from the study:

  • smokers
  • overweight people
  • people with already high plasma selenium status
  • people with long-term illnesses
  • people on various medications
  • people unwilling to discontinue taking vitamins and herbal remedies at least one month prior to the start of the study

The 119 study participants received either placebo or one of the following treatments:

  • selenium-enriched yeast tablets containing 50, 100, or 200 micrograms of a patented organic selenium (SelenoPrecise® preparation delivered by Pharma Nord, Denmark)
  • selenium-enriched onion meals that provided the equivalent of 50 micrograms of selenium per day
  • unenriched onion meals that provided the equivalent of less than 4 micrograms of selenium per day

Measurements of selenium
Remember: Selenium is a trace element.  We measure its intake in micrograms per day, not milligrams.  We measure selenium status in plasma and serum in terms of micrograms per liter (or equivalently, in nanograms per milliliter).  Selenium in toenails or hair, then, we measure in micrograms per gram. read more

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What is a high selenium yeast supplement?

Baker’s yeast and brewer’s yeast and high selenium yeast … all strains of the same species of yeast … Saccharomyces cerevisiae … High selenium yeast preparations are the most effective form of selenium supplements. The yeast in the tablets is dead and inactive. There is no risk of a yeast infection from a high selenium yeast preparation.

The trace element selenium is an essential component of the selenium-dependent enzymes called selenoproteins.  We need these selenoproteins for the optimal biological functioning of our cells.  Specifically, we need adequate daily intakes of selenium for the protection of cellular DNA, for successful reproduction, for proper thyroid gland function, for protection against infections, for anti-oxidative protection against the damage caused by free radicals, and for the prevention of cancer and heart disease.

What form of selenium is best?
Many of us cannot get enough selenium in our diets, especially if we do not regularly eat Brazil nuts (very high in selenium) or if we eat relatively little meat and fish.  However, there are various supplemental forms of selenium available to us as consumers. read more

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Our bodies cannot make selenium for us

Cancer studies
The research base for supplementation with selenium shows the need for adequate daily selenium intakes and adequate selenium status. The formulation and the dosage of the selenium supplement are very important.

Daily selenium intakes?  We need to get this essential trace element – selenium — in our diets and in our supplements because our bodies cannot make it for us. The work of Dr. Gerhard N. Schrauzer, Dr. Raymond J. Shamberger, and Dr. Douglas V. Frost has shown that there is an inverse relationship between our selenium status and the risk of cancer mortality.  Animal studies show an inverse correlation between selenium status and incidence of cancer.  Observational studies show lower risk of various types of cancer with higher selenium status.

Intervention studies of selenium supplementation and cancer
Clinical studies in China
Large interventional studies in China, a region of the world with selenium-poor soils and foodstuffs, have shown that selenium supplements protect against hepatitis B virus and primary liver cancer [Yu] and that supplementation with a combination of selenium and other antioxidants reduces cancer incidence and mortality in a region characterized by high cancer mortality rates [Blot]. read more

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How we know that selenium supplementation is important

Selen supplementation, virus
Adequate intakes of selenium are needed to ensure the optimal functioning of the selenoproteins in the body. Selenoproteins provide protection against the development of cancer and heart disease; they are important for immune system defense; they protect against damage caused by heavy metals and chemical toxins and radiation. And, there is evidence that some of the selenoproteins have anti-viral properties.

Selenium?  A trace element?  You might well ask: How do we know that adequate amounts of dietary and supplemental selenium are important to us?
The first answer is: because we can see that selenium deficiency makes people sick.
A further answer is that we now know that selenium is an essential component of antioxidant enzymes.
And, on the basis of the results of randomized controlled trials, we know that selenium supplementation reduces the risk of cancer, reduces the risk of heart disease, and improves immune function.
Selenium is also very useful for reducing the toxic effects of heavy metals in the body.

Reason number one: Selenium-deficiency diseases
Keshan disease
In the 1960’s and 1970’s, thousands of people living in a region of China with selenium-poor soil, and, consequently, with selenium-poor food, died from the effects of a form of heart disease.  The disease, which took its name from Keshan county in the afflicted region of China, is characterized by inflammation and enlargement of the heart muscle and excess fluid in the lungs. The primary cause of the disease was selenium deficiency. read more

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The functions of selenium supplements

skin-cells antioxidant
Selenium is an important component of the antioxidant defense in the cells. It helps to protect against oxidative damage to both cells and DNA. It has been shown to have a protective effect against the damage to skin cells caused by ultraviolet radiation.

Why the interest in selenium facts?  Here, at the beginning of the seleniumfacts.com website, we want to review in broad terms what we know about the functions of selenium supplementation. We are especially interested in selenium’s antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects in the human body.

Selenium is an essential trace element in the human diet, and, in many regions of the world, it is an absolutely necessary nutritional supplement.  It has many and diverse functions in the human body.

One of the interesting things about selenium is that it does not perform its functions as an element or an ion.  Instead, it functions as a component of more complex compounds.  In particular, it is an essential component of the 21st amino acid, selenocysteine. read more

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Seleniumfacts.com – A New Website

Dr. Urban Alehagen, new website
Research done at the Linköping University in Sweden by Dr. Urban Alehagen and his colleagues has shown a relatively high mortality rate in elderly Swedish citizens with low selenium status. Daily supplementation with selenium and Coenzyme Q10 for five years significantly reduced the risk of death from heart disease in home-living healthy elderly Swedish citizens.

What is the idea behind a new website called seleniumfacts.com?

For the most part, what we want to do with this website is to present clinical research results from published, peer-reviewed studies of the safety and efficacy of selenium supplements.

A cousin website to the website q10facts.com
We want to try to do the same thing with seleniumfacts.com that we have been doing with q10facts.com website.

We want to report the results of human studies that have been done as randomized controlled clinical trials.  We want to present the following types of information about selenium supplementation studies and selenium status:

  • the study design
  • the sample size
  • the composition of the sample
  • the selenium form and dosage
  • the length of the study
  • the confounding factors in the study
  • the study results
  • the researchers’ interpretation of the results

Intervention studies about selenium supplementation
Basically, there are two types of human studies: observational studies and intervention studies.  The big difference between observational studies and intervention studies is that the researchers control the use of the independent variable in intervention studies but do not do so in observational studies. read more