Selenium

Selenium, is a reddish-brown solid Metalloid, somewhat translucent, and of dull metallic glance, insoluble in water, and alcohol. It exists crystalline, and vitreous; at water's boiling heat it melts and boils, evolving odour like stale horse-radish. J. Carrington Sellars, Chemistianity, 1873 Selenium looms up in importance for the very specific reason that our world is choking on a rising tide of mercury pollution made much worse because of the insane use of mercury in dentistry and medicine. Research on the pathogenesis of nonischemic dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) has focused on the role of viral pathogens and altered immunity though scientists have recognized the roles of selenium and mercury in the pathogenesis of viral cardiomyopathy.[i] The influence of these metals in cardiovascular disease has been made clinically in populations with extreme dietary deficiency or occupational exposure. Our understanding of heart disease has to incorporate trace element imbalances especially when it comes to excess of mercury and deficiency of selenium and magnesium. These imbalances operating in the background of cellular physiology do create optimal conditions for the creation of viral-induced cardiomyocyte dysfunction and other disorders of the heart. The importance of selenium in the human diet was discovered in 1979. Chinese scientists showed that children living in selenium-deficient areas were suffering from a cardiomyopathy known as Keshan disease. The symptoms of the disease were reversed when selenium was added to the diet. These discoveries led to expansive research investigating further unknown roles of selenium within the human body. The massive influx of selenium research led to the establishment of dietary recommendations from the World Health Organization (WHO). In accordance with the WHO a Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) was established for the element in 1989.[ii] Selenium is a potent immune stimulator – the most potent immune stimulator of all some think. Selenium is an essential component of thyroid metabolism and antioxidant defense, as well as immune function. It may improve activation and proliferation of B- lymphocytes and enhance T-cell function.[iii] Selenium is essential for our immune system to function at optimal performance. Thus we should not be surprised to find out those cancer patients with low selenium levels tend to have a wider spread of the disease, more recurrences and die sooner.[iv] Blood selenium levels often indicate the presence of cancer and even the severity of cancer in a patient. Selenium influences both the innate, "nonadaptive" and the acquired, "adaptive" immune systems[v]-[vi]-[vii]-[viii]-[ix] The innate immune system includes barriers to infection and nonspecific effector cells such as macrophages. Both the T and B lymphocytes form the major effector cells of the acquired system that mature with exposure to immune challenges. Selenium-deficient lymphocytes are less able to proliferate in response to mitogen, and in macrophages, leukotriene B4 synthesis, which is essential for neutrophil chemotaxis, is impaired by this deficiency. These processes can be improved by selenium supplementation. The humoral system is also affected by selenium deficiency; for example, IgM, IgG and IgA titers are decreased in rats, and IgG and IgM titers are decreased in humans. In endothelial cells from asthmatics, there is a marked selenium deficiency that results in an increase in expression of adhesion molecules, which causes greater adhesion of neutrophils.[x]   Selenium is also involved in several key metabolic activities through its selenoprotein enzymes that protect against oxidative damage.[xi] Further, selenium deficiency may allow invading viruses to mutate and cause longer-lasting, more severe illness.[xii] Animal research has shown selenium and vitamin E have synergistic effects, enhancing the body’s response to bacterial[xiii] and parasitic infections.[xiv] Proving the point that selenium is a potent immune stimulator is a 18-month study of 262 patients with AIDS found those who took a daily capsule containing 200 micrograms of selenium ended up with lower levels of the AIDS virus and more health-giving CD4 immune system cells in their bloodstreams than those taking a dummy pill. These AIDS patients who took selenium were able to suppress the deadly virus in their bodies and boost their fragile immune systems, adding to evidence that selenium has healing powers we need to pay attention to in treating cancer patients.[xv] Those with severely compromised immune systems due to AIDS had dramatically better immune system response with selenium supplementation and this finding is consistent with the information presented by the NIH on their selenium web site. Selenium is an important weapon against cancer. As an antioxidant nutrient, selenium prevents the action of free radicals which are believed to be causative agents behind degenerative diseases such as premature ageing, cancer and atherosclerosis.[xvi] Clinical trials have also indicated that selenium can have a role to play in combating oxidative diseases[xvii], enhancing the immune response[xviii], increasing male fertility[xix], improving psychological mood scores[xx] and reducing the pain and stiffness in arthritis sufferers.[xxi] The implicit importance of selenium to human health is recognised universally. Selenium is incorporated as selenocysteine at the active site of a wide range of selenoproteins. Dr. Emanuel Revici, a Romanian-born physician, scientist, author, and humanitarian[xxii] had five major papers on lipids, pain, and cancer deposited by the Pasteur Institute into the eminent National Academy of Sciences during the Second World War. By 1948, Revici had begun exploring the use of selenium in treating cancer and as a means for rendering radiation less harmful. Dr. Revici's use of selenium in the treatment of cancer predates mainstream interest in this mineral by more than twenty years. Selenium is one of the major trace elements always found deficient in cancer-prone populations. Research has shown that it is of value not only in preventing cancer but also in treating it.[xxiii] Revici uses a special molecular form of selenium (bivalent-negative selenium) incorporated in a molecule of fatty acid. In this form, he can administer up to 1 gram of selenium per day, which corresponds to 1 million micrograms per day, reportedly with no toxic side effects. In contrast, too much selenite (hexavalent-positive selenium) has toxic effects on animals, so human intake of commercial selenite is limited to a dosage of only 100 to 150 micrograms by mouth. Dr. Revici often administered his nontoxic form of selenium by injection, usually considered to be four times more powerful than the form given orally. Dr. Gerhard Schrauzer, professor of biochemistry at the University of California at La Jolla, publicly credited Revici for “having discovered pharmacologically active selenium compounds.” Dr. Gerhard Schrauzer noted almost 30 years ago if every woman in America took 200 micrograms of supplementary selenium daily that breast cancer rates would rapidly decline in the space of a few short years. Dr. Schrauzer is professor emeritus from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and has chaired two world conferences on selenium and cancer. Dr. Richard Donaldson of the St. Louis Veterans' Administration Hospital conducted a clinical trial with terminally ill cancer patients. He found that when he could raise the patients' blood levels of selenium into the normal range, their pain and tumor sizes were often reduced. In a 140 patient study of cancer victims treated with selenium, Dr. Donaldson reported in 1983 that some patients deemed terminal with only weeks to live were completely free of all signs of cancer after four years; all the patients showed a reduction in tumor size and in pain.[xxiv] The amount of selenium needed to obtain normal blood levels varied from person to person. Normal healthy people usually were seen to have normal blood selenium levels on normal diets however it seemed that cancer patients had lower selenium levels on similar diets. (As we will see below this could in great part be due to more intense mercury toxicity in cancer patients.) Apparently they could not get enough without supplements. Dr. Donaldson found that he had to supplement the cancer patients with at least 200 to 600 micrograms of selenium per day and in some cases 2,000 micrograms of selenium per day were required to obtain normal blood selenium levels. There are now seven population studies in the past six years that examined the possible connection between selenium and prostate cancer. All but one of them has found selenium protective. Karen Collins, R.D. In one recent study, men with the highest levels of selenium in their blood were about half as likely to develop advanced prostate cancer as the men with the lowest blood selenium. The "Nutritional Prevention of Cancer Project" (NPC) was a controlled, randomized cancer prevention trial in which 1,312 patients received a daily 200 mcg dose of selenium or a placebo for up to 10 years.[xxv] A 1996 study by Dr. Larry Clark of the University of Arizona showed just how effective selenium can be in protecting against cancer. In the study of 1,300 older people, the occurrence of cancer among those who took 200 micrograms of selenium daily for about seven years was reduced by 42 percent compared to those given a placebo. Cancer deaths for those taking the selenium were cut almost in half, according to the study that was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on December 25, 1996. In addition, the people who had taken selenium had 63 percent fewer prostate cancers, 58 percent fewer colorectal cancers, 46 percent fewer lung cancers and overall 37% fewer cancers. Selenium was found to reduce the risk of lung cancer to a greater degree than stopping smoking.[xxvi] The second half of this chapter is available in Natural Allopathic Medicine.                 References [i] Congest Heart Fail. 2007 Jul-Aug;13(4):193-9. The roles of selenium and mercury in the pathogenesis of viral cardiomyopathy. Cooper LT, Rader V, Ralston NV. Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Diseases, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN 55905, USA. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it [ii] Burk, R.F, and O.A. Levander. Selenium. In: Modern Nutrition in Health and Disease Ninth Edition, edited by M. Shils, J. Olson, M. Shike, and A. C. Ross. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins, 1999, p. 265-276. [iii] Hawkes WC, Kelley DS, Taylor PC. "The effects of dietary selenium on the immune system in healthy men." Biol Trace Elem Res. 81, 3:189-213, 2001. www.humanapress.com [iv] Foster HD. "Landscapes of Longevity: The Calcium-Selenium-Mercury Connection in Cancer and Heart Disease," Medical Hypothesis, Vol. 48, pp 361-366, 1997. [v] Turner, R. J. & Finch, J. M. (1991) Selenium and the immune response. Proc. Nutr. Soc. 50: 275–285.[Medline] [vi] Kiremidjian-Schumacher, L. & Roy, M. (1998) Selenium and immune function. Z. Ernahrungswiss. 37: 50–56. [vii] McKenzie, R. C., Rafferty, T. S., Arthur, J. R. & Beckett, G. J. (2001) Effects of selenium on immunity and ageing. In: Selenium: Its Molecular Biology and Role in Human Health (Hatfield, D. L., ed.), pp. 258–272. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston, MA. [viii] McKenzie, R. C., Arthur, J. R., Miller, S. M., Rafferty, T. S. & Beckett, G. J. (2002) Selenium and the immune system. In: Nutrition and Immune Function (Calder, P. C., Field, C. J. & Gill, N. S., eds.), pp. 229–250. CAB International, Oxford, U.K [ix] Beckett, G. J., Arthur, J. R., Miller, S. M. & McKenzie, R. C. (2003) Selenium, immunity and disease. In: Dietary Enhancement of Human Immune Function (Hughes D. A., Bendich, A. & Darlington, G., eds.). Humana Press, Totowa, NJ (in press). [x] Supplement: 11th International Symposium on Trace Elements in Man and Animals;Selenium in the Immune System John R. Arthur; The American Society for Nutritional Sciences J. Nutr. 133:1457S-1459S, May 2003; http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/content/full/133/5/1457SOver [xi] Ryan-Harshman M, Aldoori W. "The relevance of selenium to immunity, cancer and infectious/inflammatory diseases." Can J Diet Pract Res. 66, 2:98-102, 2005. [xii] Nelson HK et al. "Host nutritional selenium status as a driving force for influenza virus mutations." FASEB. 15:1846-8, 2001. www.fasebj.org [xiii] Berg BM et al. "alpha-Tocopherol and selenium facilitate recovery from lipopolysaccharide-induced sickness in aged mice." J Nutr. 135, 5:1157-63, 2005. www.nutrition.org. [xiv] Smith A et al. "Deficiencies in selenium and/or vitamin E lower the resistance of mice to Heligmosomoides polygyrus infections." J Nutr. 135, 4:830-6, 2005. www.nutrition.org [xv]Suppression of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 viral load with selenium supplementation: a randomized controlled trial. Hurwitz BE et al; Arch Intern Med. 2007 Jan 22;167(2):148-54; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez [xvi] Packer, L. in Oxidative Stress, Antioxidants and Ageing. Birkhauser, Basal, 1995 [xvii] McCloy R. Digestion 1998 (59, suppl. 4) 36-48 [xviii] Kiremidjian-Schumacher. L. et al. Biol. Trace Elem. Res. 1994 (41) 114-127 [xix] Scott, R and MacPherson A. Br. J. Urol. 1 998 (82) 76-80 [xx] Finley, J.W. and Penland J.G. J. Trace Elem. Exp. Med. 1998 (11) 11-27 [xxi] Pertez, A. et al. Br. J. Rheumatol. 1992 (31) 28 1-286 [xxii] http://www.tldp.com/issue/177/ReviciMemoriam.html [xxiii] http://www.healthy.net/scr/Article.asp?Id=2013&xcntr=1 [xxiv] Richard A. Passwater, Cancer and Its Nutritional Therapies (New Canaan, CT: Keats Publishing, 1983), p. 149. [xxv] http://www.prostate-cancer.org/education/nutrprod/selenium.html [xxvi] Clark LC. The epidemiology of selenium and cancer. Fed Proc 1985; 44:2584-2590.