Tag: selenium

Selenium May Prevent Degenerative Joint Disease

Claus Hancke

November 24, 2005

For the first time ever, researchers have studied the correlation between selenium deficiency and osteoarthritis, which correlation is surprisingly strong and indicates that selenium supplementation may prevent the Western World’s most common cause of mobility-impairment.

There is a general agreement that selenium is a mineral which western Europeans get less and less of through their diets. Modern agricultural methods and the acidification of the soil has have caused a lowered amount of this vital antioxidant I crops, and thereby a lowered amount of selenium in our bodies. The deficiency is severe enough that, as early as the 1980’s, it widespread problems in Danish pigs so severe that, after some political tug-of-war, supplements were added to their feed. But does this deficiency mean anything for people?

So far the only answer is “probably.” Large population studies in Finland etc. have shown that members of the group which gets the least selenium via diet have the greatest risk of getting cancer.

Just as importantly, in an American randomised study with 1,300 participants undertake nine years ago, it was found that supplements of selenium halved the frequency of new cancer cases. The less selenium presents in the blood beforehand, the greater the positive effect with the supplement. The result was so certain that the study was stopped early for ethical reasons and is being repeated on a larger scale. If selenium prevents cancer so effectively, we should be absolutely certain of its effects.

Meanwhile, researchers from North Carolina’s university in cooperation with the American Center for Disease Control (CDC) discovered another relationship: Selenium deficiency causes an increased risk of arthritis of the knees. The risk of arthritis of the knees increases by 15-20% every time that the body’s selenium content is reduced by 10 micrograms (per kilo body weight). For comparison, the blood of the average Dane contains about 80 microgram/litre while the blood of the average American contains 110.

Among the nearly 900 people who were followed for 15 years, the risk was 40% lower in the third who received the most selenium. If they developed arthritis anyway, there was a tendency that it was to a lesser degree.

This is just a statistical relationship. It has not yet been published in the press, but has been presented in a congress (15.11.05) in San Diego for American arthritis doctors and can be read in an official press release from North Carolina’s university.

Nevertheless, the study’s leader, professor Joanne Jordan, has declared that the group is very excited about their findings. It could indicate that there is a possibility of preventing arthritis in the knee and possibly in other joints. In other words, it might be possible to prevent the most common reason for activity reduction in the western world. In China it is known that extreme selenium deficiency can cause severe cartilage injury in joints as early as during childhood. Does this point in the same direction?

Maybe, but it is not known for certain. According to Joanne Jordan, the next step in to study selenium’s effect on cartilage in the laboratory. The obvious hypothesis is that this effect is due to selenium’s function as an antioxidant. Clinical studies, in other words randomised studies, should be undertaken to find out whether selenium supplements effect pain and the level of function in people with arthritis.

The new finds are not final, but it is the first time that anyone has studied the correlation between arthritis and selenium. It is very surprising that the relationship is so apparent.

By: Vitality Council

References:
1. Rayman M. The importance of selenium to human health. The Lancet 2000:;356:233-41.
2. News Release. Study links low selenium levels with higher risk of osteoarthritis. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/nov05/jordan111005.htm
3. Clark LC. et al. Effect of selenium supplementation for cancer prevention in patients with carcinoma of the skin. A randomized controlled trial. JAMA 1996;276:1957-63.

www.thelancet.com
www.unc.edu/news/archives/nov05/jordan111005.htm
jama.ama-assn.org
www.iom.dk

Perhaps selenium can prevent hereditary breast cancer

Claus Hancke

May 30, 2005

Women with a genetic tendency towards breast cancer have unstable chromosomes. Studies now show that these chromosomes can be stabilized by taking selenium supplements.
About every twenty cases of breast cancer are due to inheritance. Most often, the cause is an innate mutation in the so-called BRCA1 gene, which, under normal circumstances, repairs damage to chromosomes.

If you carry this mutation, you already have a high risk of breast cancer: Approximately 60% will get the disease before they reach 50, and approximately 85% will get it before they reach 70. At the same time, the risk of ovarian cancer is no less than 60%.

It is a despairing situation to be born with this mutation, which presents the affected with difficult decisions. Some prefer to prevent the cancer by having their breasts and ovaries removed at a young age, while others wait and see if they are among the unlucky ones. Those affected must at least think about having the children they want at a young age if they want to retain the opportunity to breastfeed. There is no certainty as to when the disease will strike.

Now, however, a highly interesting Polish study suggests that the risk can be significantly reduced with a simple supplement of selenium. The supplement drastically reduces the frequency of chromosomal damage in women with the congenital defect. This can, if the results hold, buy the vulnerable women time and reduce their risk of instability in the protective chromosomes.

The experiment was carried out at the Pomeranian Academy of Medicine in Szczecin. It was about measuring the amount of mutations – so-called chromosome breaks – on white blood cells, which in the laboratory were exposed to “chemical radiation” in the form of the chemotherapy drug bleomycin.

Two experiments were performed. In one, chromosome breaks were compared in 26 women with and 26 women without the congenital defect. In the first, 0.59 fractures per cell were measured, while women without the defect had only 0.39.

35 other women, all of whom were carriers of the mutation, now participated in the second trial. Half of them received a daily supplement of approx. 280 mcg selenium a day, after which they had blood samples taken after 1-3 months, so that their blood cells could also be exposed to bleomycin. The result was almost exactly as in the first experiment: In the blood cells of the women who did not receive selenium, 0.63 chromosome breaks occurred per cell, while those who received the selenium had only 0.40 fractures per. cell.

In other words, women with the inherited mutation could increase the stability of their chromosomes to normal with something as simple as a daily selenium supplement. The question then is how this is to be interpreted. Does this mean that they also had their cancer risk reduced?

There are many indications of this, but one cannot be sure. Researchers have concluded that hereditary breast cancer is due in part to unstable chromosomes. Others have found that breast cancer patients have clearly more chromosomal abnormalities in their white blood cells than healthy ones. In addition, several experiments have shown a correlation between the susceptibility to cancer in general and the level of chromosome rupture.

In addition, a study of 3,812 workers who were exposed to mutation-promoting substances showed that those who had the most chromosomal abnormalities were also most likely to get cancer later on. The clues are many.

Selenium has an antioxidant effect and has been shown to be strongly anti-cancer in several trials. As the soil in Poland (just like Denmark) is very low in selenium, the researchers believe that a similar experiment in other countries could give a different result.

The participants received the equivalent of approx. three regular selenium tablets with organic selenium a day. It is a dose that certainly does not exceed what is allowed.

By: Vitality Council

References:
Kowalska E. et al. Increased rates of chromosome breakage in BRCA1 carriers are normalised by oral selenium supplementation. Cancer Epidem Biomarkers Prev 2005;14(5):1302-6.

cebp.aacrjournals.org

www.iom.dk

Perhaps Prostate Cancer may be a Rarity in the Future

Claus Hancke

April 1, 2005

Every forth man lives with a highly increased risk of getting cancer of the prostate, the next most frequent cause to cancer deaths in men. It does not have to be like that. Exactly these exposed men could easily decrease their risk to a tenth.

Researchers from Harvard University in Boston have published a landmark study. It strongly suggests that most cases of cancer in the prostate are due to lack of balance in the body’s defense against free oxygen radicals. And most importantly: This balance can be restored with antioxidants – especially with selenium, but also vitamin E and the red dye of the tomatoes, lycopene. Prostate cancer can thus become a rare disease.

The imbalance occurs especially in men who get too little selenium and who, for hereditary reasons, have a particularly effective antioxidant enzyme (manganese-containing SOD) in their mitochondria. The mitochondria are the cells’ internal energy factories, which are worn down by free oxygen radicals with age. This wear and tear, parenthetically noted, is believed to be a very significant cause of aging and age-related diseases.

One would therefore think that it was an advantage to have a particularly effective antioxidant enzyme in one’s mitochondria. But very often it is not. The SOD enzyme transforms free oxygen radicals into the less risky hydrogen peroxide, but this creates a new problem: the hydrogen peroxide must also be removed, since it also causes harmful oxygenation. The removal requires an enzyme (glutathione peroxidase), the quantity of which depends on the supply of selenium.

The more free oxygen radicals (e.g. from smoking) that need to be neutralized and the more efficient the SOD enzyme is, the more harmful hydrogen peroxide accumulates and the greater the need for selenium.

Balance in things
The Harvard study is part of a study of approx. 15,000 American doctors who have been followed since 1982. Around 1990, 275 of them had developed serious prostate cancer, and it was those who were primarily found interesting.

By: Vitality Council

References:
1. Haojie Li et al. : Manganese superoxide dismutase polymorphism, prediagnostic antioxidant status, and risk of clinical significant prostate cancer. Cancer Res. 2005;65:2498-2504.
2. Woodson et al. Manganese superoxide dismutase (MnSOD) polymorphism, α-tocopherol supplementation and prostate cancer risk in the α-Tocopherol, β-Carotene Cancer Prevention Study. Cancer Causes Control 2003;14:513-8
3. Niels Hertz. Selen – et livsvigtigt spormineral. Forlaget Ny Videnskab 2002.

www.aacr.org/cncrrea.htm
www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/caco;jsessionid=2sf53q49osdn1.victoria
www.iom.dk

Selenium, Research references

Admin

January 1999

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Sources:
Joseph E. Pizzorno Jr., Michael T. Murrey & Melvyn R. Werbach.