19 replies to this topic

[Mousehunter]

I take LEF Two Per Day (200 mcg selenium) + LEF Super Booster (200 mcg) =400 mcg
but I am afraid it can be a little bit too much.

What do you think about that?

[kismet]

Yep, stop killing yourself. Also, please add an option for 'zero'; no one should take any selenium when living on Se replete soils. And even otherwise <<70mcg would be my dose of choice (IIRC).

[Mousehunter]

Yep, stop killing yourself. Also, please add an option for 'zero'; no one should take any selenium when living on Se replete soils. And even otherwise <<70mcg would be my dose of choice (IIRC).

Why killing? Can you explain your opinion?
It can be very interesting.

[leha]

What kismet said. Selenium is poisonous in high doses (and I have actually witnessed its detrimental effects on migratory birds that travel the Sacramento Valley, where most of the produce in the US comes from).

There is a HUGE problem with selenium runoff in the Central Valley, and agribusiness there is trying desperately to just wash it away, but the soils are deeply saturated from years of intensive ag there. The runoff gets into the water supply, and that's how the birds get poisoned. Guess who else gets it? People who eat conventionally grown (or even pseudo-organic) produce, and/or drink/irrigate with California water anywhere downstream of the Delta.

Even with ag doing everything it can to keep the selenium levels in your food down, there is still far more than your daily requirement available in the average person's diet. I have often wondered if they weren't putting it in supplements as a way of getting rid of it.

Seriously, don't take selenium. You already get enough. For that matter, eat locally-sourced produce, the kind that grows in your back yard being the very best.

[Mousehunter]

Selenium is poisonous in high doses

It is obviously. The question is: how much Selenium is necessary to be toxic?

[leha]

Either 400, or 800 mcg, depending on whether you want to play fast and loose:

http://en.wikipedia....lenium#Toxicity

You can get 169% of your minimum daily requirement as established by the FDA from one ounce of mixed nuts, which contains 118 mcg. If you want even more, eat straight Brazilnuts, but again, there is plenty of selenium in fertilized conventionally grown produce, in meat (if you eat meat), and in many other foods, and the human need for it is very low, so supplementing with it is adding more to your risk platform than your benefit platform.

[markymark]

I take LEF Two Per Day (200 mcg selenium) + LEF Super Booster (200 mcg) =400 mcg
but I am afraid it can be a little bit too much.

What do you think about that?

Hello Mousehunter,

Between 5 to 8 of the LEF Mix capsules/day (even one day per week off) for more than 5 years, together with the LEF Booster (one cps.) gave me a way too high whole blood and serum selenium level. I posted this elsewhere at ImmInst. No other known selenium source besides diet and I live in a selenium-pour area. BTW. I am doing fine in terms of health and selenium decreased after stopping the Booster and decreasing the LE-Mix to 2/day during the last year...

All LEF should do IMO is to decrease the selenium content in Booster and LE-Mix by 50 %. There is definitely accumulation of selenium taking place in long-term users of the LE-Mix and Booster-combination. I have checked this in some of my patients too and have also sent two or three e-mails to LEF in this regard. They did not agree with me in this point.
However, I consider LEF still a valuable source for health information and supplements...

MM

[pamojja]

... it's rampant in foods, 400 is probably the safer number, but the daily requirement is much less than this and can be met and exceeded by a small handful of mixed nuts (1 oz).

Not for sure. In average I eat about 2 1/2 oz of various nuts daily, with my whole diet this adds up to only 80 mcg Selenium per day.

The reason for my different number is that I investigated and adjusted the suspicious high selenium content of brazil nuts given in the http://www.nal.usda.gov/ database, because other sources give much lower content (range: 100 - 2000 mcg/100g. Therefore I averaged the selenium content of brazils (390 mcg/100g) in my calculations.

I'm also uncertain how serum levels reflect real selenium status.

[Lufega]

the UL for selenium is 400 mcg. You're supplementing this much already without taking into concern dietary amounts.

[Mousehunter]

Between 5 to 8 of the LEF Mix capsules/day (even one day per week off) for more than 5 years, together with the LEF Booster (one cps.) gave me a way too high whole blood and serum selenium level.

How was (μg/L) your serum selenium level at that time?

All LEF should do IMO is to decrease the selenium content in Booster and LE-Mix by 50 %.

They definitely should do it. I don`t understand whey they put so much selenium in their products.

I have checked this in some of my patients

But not by all patients?

[Mousehunter]

the UL for selenium is 400 mcg. You're supplementing this much already without taking into concern dietary amounts.

It`s pretty unbelievable first of all for Europe.

[Dmitri]

It depends if I remember to take my second dose of multi-vitamin after dinner it's 100mcg if I do take that 2nd dose it's 200mcg.

[markymark]

Normal range from the lab for selenium in whole blood is: 97-157 µg/l, grey zone, i. e. elevated but not critical < 250 µg/l.
My first whole blood selenium level was > 550 and it decreased to 253 over approx. 15 months, after I changed my regimen. I do not have the precise levels at hand here, where I am writing this post.

Precisely, in all (n = 5 so far, I run a very small surgery for preventive - and anti aging medicine) of my clients, who were on LEF products at the time and whose blood I checked, I found elevated selenium whole blood levels, i. e. between 250-350 µg/l. I used to recommend the LE-Mix / Super Booster combination. These selenium levels are not acutely dangerous, but the LE-Mix/Booster combo cannot be continued. I should say that only a part of my clients/patients are on LEF products. I recommend other brands and sources for supplements as well.

Btw., I did a trial (PMID: 9650013) in HIV-infected patients using 500 µg selenium /day as sodium selenite which went on for nine months. Selenium incresed but leveled off after 2-3 months. IMO the selenium compounds LEF is using, are part of the problem.

[pycnogenol]

I take 200 micrograms of selenium glycinate every other day and skip the weekends.

[kilgoretrout]

Selenium is poisonous in high doses

It is obviously. The question is: how much Selenium is necessary to be toxic?

400-800 mcg, depending on how much risk you want to incur. Since it's rampant in foods, 400 is probably the safer number, but the daily requirement is much less than this and can be met and exceeded by a small handful of mixed nuts (1 oz).

Is there something you are trying to treat or prevent?

Heresay. Proof in the form of human trials or other peer-reviewed published studies of supplement consumption by live humans?

USDA "standard" intake numbers are pretty worthless, as evidenced by the fact that for 80 years they said no more than 400IU of D, but recently all of the sudden they say "OH CRAP! Everyone is WAY too low for proper health... ummm... make that 2000IU... sorry... oops again"

Edited by kilgoretrout, 19 September 2010 - 05:20 AM.

[24 Is Ours]

Around 250-350 (3 brazil nuts everyday) to protect my thyroid while supplementing Iodine :]

[strake]

Selenium is poisonous in high doses

It is obviously. The question is: how much Selenium is necessary to be toxic?

400-800 mcg, depending on how much risk you want to incur. Since it's rampant in foods, 400 is probably the safer number, but the daily requirement is much less than this and can be met and exceeded by a small handful of mixed nuts (1 oz).

Is there something you are trying to treat or prevent?

Heresay. Proof in the form of human trials or other peer-reviewed published studies of supplement consumption by live humans?

USDA "standard" intake numbers are pretty worthless, as evidenced by the fact that for 80 years they said no more than 400IU of D, but recently all of the sudden they say "OH CRAP! Everyone is WAY too low for proper health... ummm... make that 2000IU... sorry... oops again"

Wikipedia gives this source:
Yang, G., Zhou, R. (1994). Further Observations on the Human Maximum Safe Dietary Selenium Intake in a Seleniferous Area of China. 8. Department of Trace Element Nutrition, Institute of Nutrition and Food Hygiene, Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine. pp. 159–165.

Selenium is indeed toxic and there is no antidote for selenium poisoning (Source: Inchem (http://inchem.org), "Selenium"), so use caution. Also, it tastes and smells truly vile -- this alone should be warning enough . (Source: Personal experience.)

I get 37 ug/day in my daily multi.

[cherrysilver]

I'm eating about 5-6 brazil nuts a day, but am now thinking I may ramp that down to 3 nuts....

[aaCharley]

I generally try to eat three to five Brazil nuts on most days. that makes the amount a bit indeterminate as the content in any particular Brazil nut cannot be known and is probably pretty variable. However, since selenium can be accumulated in the body, the variability in a particular day or nut is not too much of a concern if it balances out on a weekly or monthly basis. My purpose is to insure an adequate supply for glutathione production.

[kilgoretrout]

From the abstract Strake referred to:

The corresponding safe Se intake per day would be 819 +/- 126 micrograms (15 micrograms/kg B.W. or approximately 800 micrograms per day, which is suggested as the mean No Adverse Effect Level (NOAEL), and the lower limit of the 95% confidence interval, 600 micrograms per day would approximately the maximum individual safe Se intake. For safety, 400 micrograms is again proposed as the Maximum Safe Daily Dietary Se Intake. Problems inherent in this estimation have been discussed.


Interesting how they start with 800mcg/d and ratchet that all the way back to 400.


Well I guess I will limit my supplement total to 400-500, assuming I'm getting a hundred more mcg from diet. I'm not sure I buy the idea that anything over 400 is dangerous. I was taking 1200 supplemental daily for a long time (years) and had not one hint of any problems... these government levels are generally about "covering someones ass" in one way or another. They are why D levels were set at 400IU/d which now all of the sudden, except for a recent "cover our ass" bitch-report from the FDA or some other govt agency, nutrition research is saying dangerously UNDER what the vast majority of people really need. I've seen a number of other articles over the years saying that fears of toxicy from selenium below the 2 MG/day level are hooey. But this Chinese study was the result of physical events that resulted in actual poisoning, which of course you cant do with human study participants, so yes it does deserve some respect. So I will go with their initial analysis of 800mcg/d = "No Adverse Effect Level."


[On the D question I think I believe the initial study of a couple thousand participants, alot more than the FDA's armchair "how dare you contradict us" rebuttal... I call BS on that]


Here's the summary on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selenium)

Toxicity
Although selenium is an essential trace element, it is toxic if taken in excess. Exceeding the Tolerable Upper Intake Level of 400 micrograms per day can lead to selenosis.^[23] This 400 microgram (µg) Tolerable Upper Intake Level is based primarily on a 1986 study of five Chinese patients who exhibited overt signs of selenosis and a follow up study on the same five people in 1992.^[24] The 1992 study actually found the maximum safe dietary Se intake to be approximately 800 micrograms per day (15 micrograms per kilogram body weight), but suggested 400 micrograms per day to not only avoid toxicity, but also to avoid creating an imbalance of nutrients in the diet and to account for data from other countries.^[25] The Chinese people who suffered from selenium toxicity ingested selenium by eating corn grown in extremely selenium-rich stony coal (carbonaceous shale). This coal was shown to have selenium content as high as 9.1%, the highest concentration in coal ever recorded in literature.^[26] A dose of selenium as small as 5 milligram (5000 µg) per day can be lethal for many humans.^[27]