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KMID : 0603520030080010024
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Journal of Korean Association of Cancer Prevention
2003 Volume.8 No. 1 p.24 ~ p.29
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Selenium Supplementation and Human Health a New Zealand Perspective
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Ferguson Lynnette R.
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Abstract
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Selenium is an essential micronutrient, for which frank deficiency has been linked with muscle wasting diseases. However, an increasing accumulation of evidence is also associating low selenium status with increased risk of various degenerative diseases including cardiovascular disease, cancer and diabetes, and increased susceptibility to and virulence from viral infections. Low selenium can synergise with low iodine status. New Zealand soils are notoriously deficient in selenium, leading to sub-optimaI levels in humans eating food plants grown on such soils, and/or animals grazing on such plants. Selenium is known to play a role in protection against oxidative stress. Selenium dependent glutathione peroxidase removes the products of free radicals and other reactive oxygen species, while thioredoxin reductase is a selenocysteine-containing enzyme that regulates the reduction of exposed disulphide groups. Although these selenoproteins are known to be involved in the repair of oxidative damage, there have been no available data to show whether these enzymes are at high enough levels in New Zealand to cope adequate1y with DNA damage. The single cell gel electrophoresis or COMET assay measures DNA breakage in individual cells. We have used this assay to question whether initial blood selenium levels relate to susceptibility to leucocyte DNA damage, in a high cancer-risk group of men in Auckland whose serum selenium content averaged 97.8 ng/ml. In those individuals whose Se status was below the mean, there was a statistically significant inverse relationship between serum selenium and average level of DNA breakage in circulating blood leucocytes. The data lead us to question some of the assumptions in setting the current recommended daily allowance of selenium in New Zealand and other countries.
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KEYWORD
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Selenium, New Zealand, Human disease
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