27 replies to this topic

[dunbar]

This is just great. I thought selenium is good and now this. It's really like everything you think is healthy could just as well be bad for you.

http://www.naturalme....asp?article=51

And what kind of selenium is best? Does anyone know this here?

http://www.precisein...com/source.html

[timar]

This study does not suggest that selenium causes lung cancer in smokers. It has been a phase III trial, testing the effects of selenium supplementation on patients with existing lung cancer. There is always the possibility that nutrients which act neutral or even exert a preventive effect against cancer may accelerate the growth of existing cancers. This is because cancers are fast-growing cells which need essential nutrients like normal cells do, but in larger amounts. The evidence regarding the cancer protective efects of selenium is mixed though, some trials suggesting a preventive effect, some the opposite. As selenium is a crucially important nutrient for the synthesis of the body's own antioxidant enzymes, one should make sure to get sufficient amounts of it from the diet or from supplements. While most non-vegan Americans may get enough selenium from their diet alone, poeple in central and northern Europe, where the soils have been depleted of selenium and iodine by the ice age glaciers, probably need to supplement selenium in some way, especially if they follow a predominantly plant-based diet.

Given the mixed evidence, there may be a U-shaped association between selenium intake and cancer incidence or all-cause mortality. One trial found a protective effect against prostate cancer using a dose of 200mcg of a yeast-derived form (which is mostly selenomethionine), while another trial using 200mcg of pure selenomethionine (alone or combined with vitamin E) found no protective effect at all, although in a collective with a higher baseline selenium status than that from the first study. Hence, I would recommend to take 100mcg of either a yeast-derived form, or a pure form that provides selenocysteine, which is the form of selenium found in cancer-protective allium vegetables and the form our body requires to incoporate selenium into proteins (other forms are metabolized to selenocysteine for that purpose). I would avoid anorganic salts (selenate or senelite) because they have a much higher toxicity than organic forms and occur only in trace amounts in the diet.

The best form of selenium "supplement" however seems to be brazil nuts. A trial from New Zealand found that eating only two brazil nuts a day increases plama selenium levels to an equal extend as a dose of 100mcg selenomethionine, while raising the plasma and red blood cell level of the important antioxidant enzyme glutathione peroxidase to a signigicantly greater extend - actually more than twice as much. Another example of how whole foods are more than just the sum of their major active constituents. I think eating two brazil nuts a day is an inexpensive and highly enjoyable form of selenium supplementation which probably is superior to any isolated selenium supplement available.

Edited by timar, 18 December 2013 - 12:55 PM.

[dunbar]

Thanks a lot! You seem to know selenium very well.

What concerned me was this article here. To me it sounded as if selenium could increase cancer risk.
My mom smokes and I actually wanted to give her selenium but now I'm too scared of doing something wrong.

http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/18062829

When all Se-supplemented groups were pooled we found significant down regulation of the expression of some phase 2 genes (GCLC, Fra1). A significant increase in AhRR gene expression with smoking was found but was independent of Se supplementation. Down regulation of phase 2 genes could increase the risk of cancer.

[Dorian Grey]

For reducing cancer risk in smokers/former smokers IP6 shows promise.

http://www.cancer.or...l-hexaphosphate

"Studies in animals have found that supplementing the animals’ diets with IP6 may help prevent tumors from forming in the prostate, lung, colon, skin, and other areas"

"One preliminary human study suggested that IP6 may cause regression of precancerous lung changes in smokers"

[nightlight]

The results have P=0.15 i.e. making claims on such P is a a junk science.

[Dorian Grey]

I've done a bit of research into the smoking/lung cancer issue as I'm an old pipe puffer myself...

It seems tobacco smoke is particularly high in iron, and the long term oxidative stress of having iron particulate in lung tissue may be one of the primary carcinogenic properties of tobacco smoke.

It's interesting to note, that of the three forms of asbestos (notorious for lung carcinogenesis), one form in particular (crocidolite) is substantially more carcinogenic than the other two forms. In looking into why crocidolite is so much more dangerous than the other forms, it was found crocidolite has substantially more iron than the other forms.

As asbestos fibers are too large to actually enter the cell to cause damage to nuclear DNA, it is proposed that iron leaching from crocidolite asbestos may be why this form of asbestos is so much deadlier than the other forms.

IP6 is known to bind/chelate iron, so perhaps this is why it may be helping smokers reduce their cancer risk.

[Dorian Grey]

Polonium (leached from soil/fertilizer in tobacco farming) is another prime suspect in tobacco's carcinogenesis, and IP6 may help chelate polonium too.

Not a lot of evidence out there specific to IP6 and polonium chelation, but IP6 has indications it may help with uranium chelation, so perhaps this may be yet another anti-cancer effect with IP6 and smoking.

[joelcairo]

This was a study of selenized yeast, which I believe is selenomethionine, perhaps not the best form of selenium to take for anticancer purposes. I have read that selenite has the greatest beneficial effect.

Also, because they were looking at patients who had been previously treated for lung cancer, it would be interesting to know how continuing smokers fared vs. former smokers vs. never-smokers. I can't see any such data in the abstract.

[Volcanic]

The results have P=0.15 i.e. making claims on such P is a a junk science.

P=0.15 is hardly definitive proof, but it's certainly suggestive. And they might have gotten a lower p-value if they'd continued the study, but then they'd probably (in their view at least) have been killing people.

[dunbar]

Hello,
how do you interpret the P values? I'm not really into this stuff. I learned it once but forgot all of this. But it sucks when you want to read medical articles with all these stats and then don't know how to interpret the numbers. Can anyone recommend a good book or other sources which simply describe how to interpret statistical values?

I'm confused about which selenium is best. I read that sodium selenite is toxic. But I also read that organic selenium can build up in the body unlikely sodium selenite and also be harmful!
I have been using sodium selenite in the past sporadically. I also read bad stuff about selenium methionine.
This is all totally confusing and discouraging. It's really as if you can read something negative about every kind of selenium out there.

[timar]

What concerned me was this article here. To me it sounded as if selenium could increase cancer risk.
My mom smokes and I actually wanted to give her selenium but now I'm too scared of doing something wrong.

http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/18062829

When all Se-supplemented groups were pooled we found significant down regulation of the expression of some phase 2 genes (GCLC, Fra1). A significant increase in AhRR gene expression with smoking was found but was independent of Se supplementation. Down regulation of phase 2 genes could increase the risk of cancer.

I wouldn't base any decision regarding selenium supplementation on this paper. It shows that selenium status affects gene expression but it is far from certain that those changes are in fact detrimental. They may represent an unfavorable effect but they may as well represent a normalization of abberant gene expression. Hence, hard endpoints are much more important.

This was a study of selenized yeast, which I believe is selenomethionine, perhaps not the best form of selenium to take for anticancer purposes. I have read that selenite has the greatest beneficial effect.

Everybody has read something somewhere. This is simply wrong though. Selenomethionine is the predominant form of selenium in food. Sodium selenite hardly naturally occurs in food at all and has a much higher toxicity than selenomethionine. Avoid it.

how do you interpret the P values?

A P-value of <= 0.05 is considered statistically significant. It means that there is a probability of 5% left that the results are due to chance. A P-value of 0.15 is far from significant (15% chance chance) and IMO nobody should suggest significant findings based on such a P-value.

I'm confused about which selenium is best. I read that sodium selenite is toxic. But I also read that organic selenium can build up in the body unlikely sodium selenite and also be harmful!
I have been using sodium selenite in the past sporadically. I also read bad stuff about selenium methionine.
This is all totally confusing and discouraging. It's really as if you can read something negative about every kind of selenium out there.

Don't let yourself be confused. Almost all of the trials which have shown beneficial effects of selenium supplemention have been done with either yeast-derived selenium or pure selenomethionine. Your mother would probably be best off by simply taking a decent multivitamin providing an organic form of selenium (like the Two-per-Day at 1/2 dose, providing 100mcg of a mixture of selenocysteine, selenomethionine and a tiny amount of selenite) and eating a few brazil nuts now and then. Just avoid large doses of inorganic forms and don't take more than 200mcg per day.

Edited by timar, 19 December 2013 - 09:23 AM.

[joelcairo]

This was a study of selenized yeast, which I believe is selenomethionine, perhaps not the best form of selenium to take for anticancer purposes. I have read that selenite has the greatest beneficial effect.

Everybody has read something somewhere. This is simply wrong though. Selenomethionine is the predominant form of selenium in food. Sodium selenite hardly naturally occurs in food at all and has a much higher toxicity than selenomethionine. Avoid it.

Simply stating the same thing again, in a more insulting manner, doesn't make you any more correct.


If you have evidence showing that selenomethionine has a greater cancer protective ability, feel free to post it. In the meantime...


Inhibition of the in Vitro Growth of Human Mammary Carcinoma Cell Line ( MCF-7 ) by Selenium and Vitamin E
http://www.yumpu.com...carcinoma-cell-

"In both protocols, a relatively higher inhibitory potency of sodium selenite over selenomethionine was obvious"


Dietary supplementation of selenomethionine reduces metastasis of melanoma cells in mice
http://ukpmc.ac.uk/a...ct/MED/10368696

In this study, mice treated with selenite had fewer metastatic tumors than mice treated with an equivalent amount of selenium as selenomethionine.


Rationale for the treatment of cancer with sodium selenite
http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/15694701


Selenium: What Forms Protect Against Cancer? (Life Extension Magazine)
http://www.lef.org/m...t-Cancer_01.htm

Long article suggesting that the best choice is to ensure high levels of 3 major forms of selenium.

[timar]

Sorry, didn't mean to be insulting.

If you have evidence showing that selenomethionine has a greater cancer protective ability, feel free to post it. In the meantime...

I did not say that is has a greater cancer protective ability per se. All I said was that it has a much higher toxicity and that it is not the form naturally found in selenium-rich food. Most reports on selenium toxicity are from the ingestion of inorganic forms (including neurotoxicity at chronic intake levels much lower than previously thought), while even Brazilian populations eating brazil nuts as a dietary staple and thus having extremely high blood levels of selenium haven't shown any obvious signs of selenosis.

Organic, protein bound selenium is the form nature provides and we have evolved to handle. We can't handle high doses of inorganic forms very well, because we rarely ever had to deal with them during evolution.

Inhibition of the in Vitro Growth of Human Mammary Carcinoma Cell Line ( MCF-7 ) by Selenium and Vitamin E
http://www.yumpu.com...carcinoma-cell-

"In both protocols, a relatively higher inhibitory potency of sodium selenite over selenomethionine was obvious"

Of course sodium selenite has a higher inhibitory potency in vitro, because it generally has a much higher cytotoxicity, not only for cancer cells. You have to be very careful in interpreting the results of in vitro studies, especially when dealing with such toxic compounds.

Dietary supplementation of selenomethionine reduces metastasis of melanoma cells in mice
http://ukpmc.ac.uk/a...ct/MED/10368696

In this study, mice treated with selenite had fewer metastatic tumors than mice treated with an equivalent amount of selenium as selenomethionine.

If selenium has an inhibitory effect on melanoma is this strain of mice it is only logical that selenite acts more potently, because the bioavailability of inorganic forms is higher. Both forms are metabolized into the body's own selenoproteins, but inorganic forms seem to largely bypass the regulatory mechanism for selenium homeostasis and therefore are more potent and carry a much higher risk of toxicity.

Long article suggesting that the best choice is to ensure high levels of 3 major forms of selenium.

Life Extension Magazine articles, while providing some valuable information, are mostly serving the purpose of providing a sales-pitch and reassuring LEF customers of the safety and usefullness of the supplements they buy from them. They are hardly objective.

This is the most recent and comprehensive review of selenium and cancer. It is quite sobering. The bottom line is that while low-dose selenium supplementation may provide benefits for poeple with low baseline selenium levels, higher dose supplementation seems actually more likely to promote cancer growth than to reduce it.

Moreover, there are a concerns that selenium (particulary in its in inorganic forms) might increase the risk of diabetes and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Edited by timar, 19 December 2013 - 08:30 PM.

[dunbar]

Hello,
I have sodium selenite at home left. Should I now rather throw it away?

I also read that organic selenium is more dangerous cause it builds up in the body unlike sodium selenite.

That's all so confusing. It's impossible to figure this all out unless you have tons of time on your hands to research every single nutrient out there.
For someone like me who is anxious this is very bad cause I simply can't decide what to do. I'm always unsure and worrying.

[timar]

I have sodium selenite at home left. Should I now rather throw it away?

Instead of throwing it away you could take it only once or twice a week (depending on the dose).

I also read that organic selenium is more dangerous cause it builds up in the body unlike sodium selenite.

It is more efficient in raising tissue stores of selenium, albeit less toxic. Inorganic selenium is less evenly distributed inside the body, so more of it accumulates in the kindeys, where is excerts most of its toxic effects.

That's all so confusing. It's impossible to figure this all out unless you have tons of time on your hands to research every single nutrient out there.
For someone like me who is anxious this is very bad cause I simply can't decide what to do. I'm always unsure and worrying.

There's a risk in almost everything. That's life. If you want to be on the relatively safe side with selenium, just stick to the advice I have given. For low doses the benefits probably outweight the risks.

Edited by timar, 20 December 2013 - 01:27 PM.

[Gerrans]

Hello,
I have sodium selenite at home left. Should I now rather throw it away?

I also read that organic selenium is more dangerous cause it builds up in the body unlike sodium selenite.

That's all so confusing. It's impossible to figure this all out unless you have tons of time on your hands to research every single nutrient out there.
For someone like me who is anxious this is very bad cause I simply can't decide what to do. I'm always unsure and worrying.

I could be the same. There are so many variables, I think if I am making a mistake with one thing it could undo the good of all the rest put together. Maybe, if we cannot read or understand all the papers out there, the best approach might be to try to research specific brands rather than supplements in general. For example, if we carefully chase up what LEF, Source Naturals, or whoever put in their supplements and why, we may get a head start in making the right choices. I think a moderate serving of a top quality multivitamin should keep us on the safe side of things, because the makers will have put more thought into the composition than we could into combining our own formula.

I suppose I am a bit conservative, but I think some of the people on these forums who swallow enormous stacks of this and that are taking a bit of a risk. Do they really think they are smart enough to calculate all the amounts and synergies correctly?

For selenium and iodine, I take a multivit, a bit of iodised salt, and eat a handful of mixed nuts each day. But then I do not crave to have increased cognition, alertness, vitality--I just seek the degree of those that is my due as a healthy human being. So long as I am well, it feels good to be alive...should I want more?

Edited by Gerrans, 20 December 2013 - 01:55 PM.

[timar]

I could be the same. There are so many variables, I think if I am making a mistake with one thing it could undo the good of all the rest put together. Maybe, if we cannot read or understand all the papers out there, the best approach might be to try to research specific brands rather than supplements in general. For example, if we carefully chase up what LEF, Source Naturals, or whoever put in their supplements and why, we may get a head start in making the right choices. I think a moderate serving of a top quality multivitamin should keep us on the safe side of things, because the makers will have put more thought into the composition than we could into combining our own formula.

I don't believe in brands. The only point where brands matter is quality control. Big brands can afford better QC and have the motivation to do so, because they have a reputation to loose. When it comes to the formulation, different brands may follow different approaches but don't expect any brand to have its formulas based on some proprietary divine revelation. The people having contrived those formulas don't know more about nutrition than many members of this forum do (actually, I'm affraid they often know much less) and based their formulas just as much on personal bias an on the scientific evidence available at that time.

I suppose I am a bit conservative, but I think some of the people on these forums who swallow enormous stacks of this and that are taking a bit of a risk. Do they really think they are smart enough to calculate all the amounts and synergies correctly?

I guess so. People are different, some are reckless, some are faint-hearted. I definetely count myself among the conservative folks (practically, not politically) but I don't mind to take a tiny risk when it is far outweighed by the benefits, hypothetically spoken.

For selenium and iodine, I take a multivit, a bit of iodised salt, and eat a handful of mixed nuts each day. But then I do not crave to have increased cognition, alertness, vitality--I just seek the degree of those that is my due as a healthy human being. So long as I am well, it feels good to be alive...should I want more?

Depends. If you consider yourself a radical life-extensionist or transhumanist you should probably strive for more. If you "just" wish to live a extraordinary long and healthy life while remaining a "deathist" (like I do), then your approach is just right on track IMO.

Edited by timar, 20 December 2013 - 05:43 PM.

[dunbar]

Hi,
the sodium selenite pills which I have contain 200mcg.
But I don't take them very often because it's too annoying that you have to watch out to not eat or drink anything which has vitamin C prior or after taking the selenium.
Mercola also warns of using sodium selenite. http://articles.merc...amin-toxic.aspx

Other selenium forms are more user-friendly.
I recently bought a selenium product which contains patented organic selenium called selenoprecise. I hope that this stuff is good.

[nightlight]

For reducing cancer risk in smokers/former smokers IP6 shows promise.

http://www.cancer.or...l-hexaphosphate

"Studies in animals have found that supplementing the animals’ diets with IP6 may help prevent tumors from forming in the prostate, lung, colon, skin, and other areas"

"One preliminary human study suggested that IP6 may cause regression of precancerous lung changes in smokers"

Note that those experiments use "cancer mice" and and a perversely called "recovery period" where mice is exposed to heavy smoke (at the edge of asphyxiation) until mid age, then made to quit for the rest of the experiment (several months). It is these mice that quit where they make their counting of tumors and find increase and worse outcome than non-smoking controls. Had they spared them the "recovery" the smoking mice would outlive the non-smoking mice, with half smoking mice still alive by the time all non-smolking mice has succumbed to tumors (which are genetically bred into these strains). Since those "wrong" experiments (without "recovery" and carried out to full lifespan), they have learned how to partially avoid anti-carcinogenic and obscure/mask the life-extending effects of tobacco smoke -- they make the mice quit after heavy smoking till "mid age" equivalent, plus they don't allow experiments to go full lifespan of the animals.

In fact, smoke itself provides IP6 (tobacco is a rich source of inositol) and they are really trying to find what is the anti-carcinogenic component in the smoke in order to substitute it with pharma products for smokers that they scared into quitting, since the lung cancer odds increase greatly shortly after quitting (see items 6, 11, 12 listed in this post). Here is the quote from that paper on the mice experiments with lung cancer and the preventive effects of inositol:


Expression of cyclin D1/2 in the lungs of strain A/J mice fed chemopreventive agents
Carcinogenesis. 2002 Feb;23(2):289-94.
Male strain A mice were fed a diet containing chemopreventive agents. After 1 and 3 weeks on the diets, lung nuclear fractions were examined for expression of cyclin D1/2 with western blot analysis. In animals fed a diet containing a mixture of myoinositol and dexamethasone, a treatment found previously to be effective in preventing the development of tobacco smoke-induced lung tumors in A/J mice, cyclin D1/2 expression was reduced to 30–40% of control levels. A similar decrease in cyclin D1/2 expression was found when animals were fed either myoinositol or dexamethasone alone. Paradoxically [not exactly, since TS already has inositol], tobacco smoke by itself had a similar effect on cyclin D1/2 expression. On the other hand, several agents that had been previously found not to be effective against tobacco smoke carcinogenesis [phenethyl isothiocyanate, 1,4-phenylenebis(methylene)selenoisocyanate, N-acetylcysteine, acetylsalicylic acid, D-limonene and beta carotene] did not decrease cyclin D1/2 expression after 1 or 3 weeks of feeding. It was concluded that expression of cyclin D1/2 might be a potentially useful marker in the identification of chemopreventive agents for tobacco smoke and could be of some help in the evaluation of their effects.

Edited by nightlight, 22 December 2013 - 07:38 PM.

[timar]

the sodium selenite pills which I have contain 200mcg.

If you take one of them a week, it should be quite safe.

Mercola also warns of using sodium selenite. http://articles.merc...amin-toxic.aspx

Only because Mercola warns against something, it doesn't necessarily have to be harmless (I'm not exactly a big fan of Mercola, but I have to admit that occasionally even he gets something right).

I recently bought a selenium product which contains patented organic selenium called selenoprecise. I hope that this stuff is good.

Never heard of that before, it seems to be some patented form of selenized yeast. I don't think it has any proven advantage over ordinary yeast-derived selenium.

Personally, I wouldn't even bother to buy a selenium supplement. I take a good multivitamin (the said Two-per-Day, at 1/2 dose) and eat some brazil nuts. IMO there is little advantage and possible risk in taking more than 100mcg supplemental selenium. The hypothetical U-shape curve I have constructed in my mind from all the studies I read has it's bottom somewhere around twice the RDA (which is 55mcg).

[dunbar]

Maybe you're right. It just sucks that I just ordered this selenium.

How many brazil nuts do you eat every day and do they have these in normal supermarkets? I don't know if I've ever come across them.

What also sucks is that nearly all supplements and also prescription drugs contain these fillers like titanium dioxide, silicium dioxide and stuff like that which according to what I read
is also not safe. I don't even know why they put this stuff in there. From what I read titanium dioxide can travel around in the body and then build up in tissues where it doesn't really
belong. Maybe in the end taking vitamin pills isn't even healthy because you also get these fillers with the vitamins.

[Gerrans]

Maybe you're right. It just sucks that I just ordered this selenium.

How many brazil nuts do you eat every day and do they have these in normal supermarkets? I don't know if I've ever come across them.

What also sucks is that nearly all supplements and also prescription drugs contain these fillers like titanium dioxide, silicium dioxide and stuff like that which according to what I read
is also not safe. I don't even know why they put this stuff in there. From what I read titanium dioxide can travel around in the body and then build up in tissues where it doesn't really
belong. Maybe in the end taking vitamin pills isn't even healthy because you also get these fillers with the vitamins.

It is easy to be alarmed by all the things one reads, but I doubt the fillers in vitamin pills will do any harm. What is the evidence? On the other hand, it is worth trying to find the pills with the least filler in them. For example, I take a saw palmetto capsule without added vegetable oil.

They say one or two Brazil nuts a day will provide us with enough selenium. The trouble is that Brazils are so lovely it is difficult to stop at just two--not that toxicity should result from scoffing the whole bag. So I eat mixed nuts, a handful of which provides some Brazils, plus walnuts, almonds, hazels, etc.--all with diverse healthy properties of their own. To be honest, if I had a choice between eating a multivitamin supplement or an ounce of nuts a day, I would choose the ounce of nuts.

I think it is worth changing ones source of nuts regularly, because the amount of selenium in them varies according to the soil, and you do not want to eat Brazil nuts that chance to have low selenium.

Brazil nuts are fascinating, because they are difficult to grow away from their original habitats in South America, and so farming them is more a matter of curating wild trees. As such, they are one of the most primitive, unchanged foods available to us. Research increasingly shows that nuts affect expression of our genes, which may mean that our guts and immune systems co-evolved with nuts, going back to when we were apes. That could be why selenium is so essential to our healthy functioning.

Edited by Gerrans, 23 December 2013 - 01:00 PM.

[dunbar]

Do you buy these brazil nuts fresh or are they packed?

I also like nuts. I am totally into roasted almonds. I could easily eat a 250gr package but this will also make me fat. I already gained a few pounds because of the almonds.
I recently had a bloodwork done and my HDL was pretty high I think it could have been due to the almonds.

BUT what scares me again is that I read that nuts often contain aflatoxins and basically you can never really be sure that they are free because even if they do random testing of
different nut charges then it's still possible that 9 charges are fine and 1 charge is totally contaminated.
Because of this I really don't know if eating a lot of nuts regularly is beneficial or basically a health risk. What if you poison yourself without even knowing it? I don't know if you can
smell or taste aflatoxins. I think not.

[Gerrans]

Do you buy these brazil nuts fresh or are they packed?

I also like nuts. I am totally into roasted almonds. I could easily eat a 250gr package but this will also make me fat. I already gained a few pounds because of the almonds.
I recently had a bloodwork done and my HDL was pretty high I think it could have been due to the almonds.

BUT what scares me again is that I read that nuts often contain aflatoxins and basically you can never really be sure that they are free because even if they do random testing of
different nut charges then it's still possible that 9 charges are fine and 1 charge is totally contaminated.
Because of this I really don't know if eating a lot of nuts regularly is beneficial or basically a health risk. What if you poison yourself without even knowing it? I don't know if you can
smell or taste aflatoxins. I think not.

Once again, I think you worry too much. I sometimes buy Brazil nuts in their shells, but usually I just eat them shelled. I avoid blanched nuts, though, because I believe there is a lot of goodness in the skins. Some people are worried about phytates and antinutrients in the skins, but I am not one of them. I have always eaten a lot of nuts, and sometimes, of course, one accidentally eats a stale or even a blackened nut; but so far I am not aware of any problems caused by that.

My theory is that although a lot is spoken about them going rancid, and about aflatoxin, etc., nuts contain their own antidotes to such things. Nuts are fated to lie on the ground, before or after travelling through the digestive systems of animals, and so decay, rot, and oxidation are built into their biology. Far from being easily rotted, nuts can last a long time on the ground in difficult conditions, as well as in storage or in people's kitchens. The fact they do not go off easily shows that compounds within them actively fight decay, mould, oxidation, rancidity, bacteria, and all the rest. These compounds likely also protect us digestively from the consequences of any "off" nuts we may happen to eat.

It seems my role to reassure you on things today. Why should you listen to me rather than the "everything is bad for you" brigade of online fusspots? It is up to you. I am just expressing an opinion, as one bloke who has got almost to the age of 60 in good health, after a lifetime of eating nuts (and taking vitamin pills containing fillers).

Edited by Gerrans, 23 December 2013 - 01:27 PM.

[dunbar]

Hope you're right. I also like the nuts with their skin. Roasted almonds taste really great. But I also worry how unhealthy the roasting is. But roasted ones taste much better than ordinary unroasted
almonds. I read that you usually don't overeat on foods which are high in fat because the fat makes you feel full but once I start eating those almonds I can hardly stop. I could easily eat 250gr
at once which is also not healthy.

[Volcanic]

how do you interpret the P values?

A P-value of <= 0.05 is considered statistically significant. It means that there is a probability of 5% left that the results are due to chance. A P-value of 0.15 is far from significant (15% chance chance) and IMO nobody should suggest significant findings based on such a P-value.

This. P=0.015 means that f you run the study 100 times, then 15 of them will generate these (or more significant) results even if there's no actual association. P=0.05 actually the lowest common standard of proof; some studies will define significance at 0.01 or 0.005. Defining it in advance helps to ensure some degree of objectivity: The researchers aren't supposed to go back and redefine their results to make them "significant" when they don't meet the original goals.

Still, it's important to remember that any threshold for "statistical significance" is arbitrary; it's better to interpret the P-value on its own than simply to ask whether it falls above or below 0.05. P=0.15 is definitely in the "more research needed" category, but it's also strong enough that you shouldn't go supplementing more smokers with selenium just to get more certain results.

I sometimes wonder how many high-quality drugs/treatments might be thrown away because of suggestive data like this (i.e., you can't prove it's not harmful without trying it out some more, but you don't want to try it out anymore because it might be killing people). But it's hard to argue with the decision not to pursue it further.

[dunbar]

Thanks.
I'd like to learn more about statistical values which usually show up in scientific literature and how to interpret them. Usually when I come across an article and there are charts
with values and stuff like that then I don't really know how to interpret them. I'm not sure what would be the best way to aquire some statistical literacy. Are there books or other sources
which simply teach you how to interpret this stuff?

[hallucinogen]

I guess you didn't take into Account that 2 average Brazil Nuts contain ~200mcg of selenium ? .....

 

And yes, Watch closely your selenium intake, Especially if you consume fruits and vegetables from areas of heavily selenium repleted soils, such as California !

I don't personally, so currently I'm experimenting with taking 150mcg of yeast derived selenium, or 200mcg of selenium glycinate... it's pretty hard to feel the difference between two, but im leaning towards yeast derived one

 

And if you are concerned about taking Selenium, While smoking, then STOP SMOKING, durrrrr

Selenium would not be one of the first things i'd be concerned about while smoking...

 

This study does not suggest that selenium causes lung cancer in smokers. It has been a phase III trial, testing the effects of selenium supplementation on patients with existing lung cancer. There is always the possibility that nutrients which act neutral or even exert a preventive effect against cancer may accelerate the growth of existing cancers. This is because cancers are fast-growing cells which need essential nutrients like normal cells do, but in larger amounts. The evidence regarding the cancer protective efects of selenium is mixed though, some trials suggesting a preventive effect, some the opposite. As selenium is a crucially important nutrient for the synthesis of the body's own antioxidant enzymes, one should make sure to get sufficient amounts of it from the diet or from supplements. While most non-vegan Americans may get enough selenium from their diet alone, poeple in central and northern Europe, where the soils have been depleted of selenium and iodine by the ice age glaciers, probably need to supplement selenium in some way, especially if they follow a predominantly plant-based diet.

Given the mixed evidence, there may be a U-shaped association between selenium intake and cancer incidence or all-cause mortality. One trial found a protective effect against prostate cancer using a dose of 200mcg of a yeast-derived form (which is mostly selenomethionine), while another trial using 200mcg of pure selenomethionine (alone or combined with vitamin E) found no protective effect at all, although in a collective with a higher baseline selenium status than that from the first study. Hence, I would recommend to take 100mcg of either a yeast-derived form, or a pure form that provides selenocysteine, which is the form of selenium found in cancer-protective allium vegetables and the form our body requires to incoporate selenium into proteins (other forms are metabolized to selenocysteine for that purpose). I would avoid anorganic salts (selenate or senelite) because they have a much higher toxicity than organic forms and occur only in trace amounts in the diet.

The best form of selenium "supplement" however seems to be brazil nuts. A trial from New Zealand found that eating only two brazil nuts a day increases plama selenium levels to an equal extend as a dose of 100mcg selenomethionine, while raising the plasma and red blood cell level of the important antioxidant enzyme glutathione peroxidase to a signigicantly greater extend - actually more than twice as much. Another example of how whole foods are more than just the sum of their major active constituents. I think eating two brazil nuts a day is an inexpensive and highly enjoyable form of selenium supplementation which probably is superior to any isolated selenium supplement available.

 

Edited by hallucinogen, 03 September 2014 - 05:44 PM.