Study finds no heart advantages from selenium



NEW YORK |
Fri Feb 1, 2013 4:33pm EST

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Taking additional selenium supplements offers no insurance opposite heart illness – during slightest among people who already get adequate of a vegetable in their diets, according to a new investigate of past research.

In a examination of 12 studies that enclosed tighten to 20,000 people, there was no disproportion in a series of strokes and heart attacks, heart disease-related deaths or deaths from any means among participants incidentally reserved to take selenium or nothing.

“We need to, in a sense, erase some of a myth around a unenlightened and widespread use of supplements containing selenium,” pronounced Dr. Saverio Stranges, from a University of Warwick Medical School in Coventry, UK, who worked on a review.

Still, he added, “We do need justification from clinical trials from reduction well-nourished populations where dietary intakes of selenium are lower.”

Selenium is found in meat, bread and some nuts. Plant dishes also enclose varying amounts of selenium, depending on how many is naturally benefaction in a dirt where they were grown. In addition form, it costs about $2 for a month’s supply.

The Institute of Medicine recommends many U.S. adults devour 55 micrograms of selenium per day.

Past nourishment surveys advise some 99 percent of Americans have copiousness of a vegetable in their blood.

Most of a information in a new investigate came from group in a U.S., with smaller trials from Europe, Australia and China also included. Participants were incidentally reserved to take a daily selenium addition – anywhere from 100 to 800 micrograms, depending on a investigate – or a remedy tablet or nothing.

Those trials were primarily designed to demeanour during either selenium affects a risk of cancer or other conditions, though also enclosed information on how many investigate volunteers went on to have heart disease. Studies lasted anywhere from a few months to 5 to 8 years.

On each heart-related magnitude – as good as cholesterol and blood vigour readings – there was no outcome of supplementation, according to a examination published in a Cochrane Library.

However, a studies did uncover a somewhat aloft risk of hair detriment and skin reactions among people holding selenium.

Nutrition scientist José Ordovás, who has complicated selenium during Tufts University in Boston, pronounced it’s also probable selenium competence boost a risk of diabetes or high blood vigour during vast doses.

Like other vitamins and minerals, he told Reuters Health, it competence be best to get a assuage volume of selenium by diet – not too little, not too much.

Selenium is incorporated into supposed selenoproteins, a form of antioxidant. For that reason, researchers have believed selenium supplements competence assistance forestall a operation of ongoing diseases, including cardiovascular illness and cancer.

It’s probable supplements competence still assistance people in countries where a dirt is low in selenium, or those who are ill or aged and nutrient-deficient, Stranges told Reuters Health.

But during slightest in a U.S., a infancy of people seem to get adequate selenium naturally to optimize any antioxidant effects of selenoproteins.

“It’s formidable to clear additional advantages of boosting selenium levels with supplements, in terms of antioxidant actions and therefore impediment of ongoing disease,” he said.

Ordovás, has collaborated with Stranges though wasn’t concerned in a new review, agreed.

“For people that are well-nourished and don’t have any famous disease, we don’t see any reason to suggest supplementation with selenium, during slightest for a impediment of cardiovascular disease,” he said.

SOURCE: bit.ly/YIN3MI The Cochrane Library, online Jan 30, 2013.

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