Benefits and Side Effects of Selenium

What is selenium Selenium is an essential trace element for human health and normal function. It is found in soil and water and is concentrated by plant organisms from the soil. Plants and animals living in soil-rich selenium contain a large amount of this mineral. Selenium exists in both inorganic and organic forms. Inorganic selenium is present in the form of selenite, contains selenate in the soil and organic selenium is present in the form of selenoproteins such as selenocysteine ​​and selenomethionine.

However, selenium is an essential mineral element for the nutrition of animals, including humans, and selenium deficiency is known when food or animal feed grows in selenium deficient soils. The use of inorganic selenium can increase the concentration of selenium in edible crops and animal feeds, thereby improving animal health. The effects of nutrient deficiency range from a slight decrease in growth rate to marked development delay, malformations, discoloration, distress and even death. Visual symptoms are peculiar enough to be used to identify defects that are rare. There are multiple defects, mostly mild. However, although that shortage is rarely a single nutrient, nitrogen is usually the shortest supply of nutrients.

The epidemiology of iodine and selenium deficiency in Central African Republic is related to the prevalence of mucic cretinism, a severe congenital hypothyroidism with mental and physical delay. Selenium deficiency may be just one of several pending factors that can exacerbate the negative effects of iodine deficiency (42). In addition, randomized controlled intervention studies have shown that in school-aged children with both selenium and iodine deficiency, correcting only selenium deficiency may have a deleterious effect on thyroid hormone metabolism ( 47, 48). Finally, it has been found that selenium deficiency in rodents has little effect on DIO activity as it appears to preferentially supply selenium to fully synthesize DIO at the expense of other selenases (44).