What Are The Health Benefits Of Taking Selenium?

You can go through information about selenium in greater detail below, including its health benefits, foods that contain it, how much of it you should have on a daily basis and how you can consume it.

What Is Selenium?

Selenium is a trace mineral that can perform several important roles in your body. Since this is a trace mineral, you do not need to and should not consume it in large amounts since small amounts of it are sufficient.

Overall, selenium can help reduce the risk of cancer, improve your cardiovascular health, cognitive health, thyroid health and boost your immunity level.

Selenium can manage to improve these aspects of your health mainly since it has antioxidant elements that can protect your cells. It is best to improve your selenium intake through the food you eat.

Selenium Health Benefits

Selenium has a range of health benefits that you can go through here.

Improved Cardiovascular Health

Selenium can ensure improved cardiovascular health. Improving your selenium intake through different kinds of food can lower the risk of chronic heart disease.

Strokes, fluctuations in your blood pressure, heart attacks, inflammation and other associated issues might get prevented through healthy levels of selenium in your body.

This is due to the presence of antioxidants in selenium.

Lower Risk Of Cancer

The presence of antioxidants can also help lower the risk of developing cancer. Further, selenium can play a role in repairing or preventing too much damage to the DNA. Since it can considerably improve your immunity, it can be possible for your body to fight against cancer cells.

However, selenium is usually only effective against certain kinds of cancers and even then, simply consuming more selenium is not enough to prevent cancer completely.

Usually, it can reduce the chances of breast cancer, gastric cancer, prostate cancer, lung cancer and esophagal cancer.

Cognitive Health

Impact on your cognitive health is also possible through a healthy intake of selenium. For instance, selenium might be able to slow done the natural weakening that usually takes place in your mind as you continue to age.

Reduction in the risk of several other cognitive disorders that can affect you can occur as well. Symptoms associated with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s can reduce and general improvement in memory and awareness can take place as well.

While it is important to consume healthy levels of this trace mineral for your health, taking supplements exclusively to deal with some of these cognitive issues might not give you the desired results, especially since research regarding this is limited.

Healthy Thyroid

The thyroid gland contains a large amount of selenium due to the presence of associated enzymes. Thus, maintaining a good intake of selenium can help ensure that your thyroid health remains in a proper condition and is able to carry out its functions well.

Without sufficient selenium, your thyroid gland might end up weakening, increasing the chances of developing thyroid-related conditions such as hyperthyroidism, Graves’ disease and Hashimoto disease.

Studies to support taking selenium to improve thyroid health, however, are not yet extensive and well developed.

Immunity Boost

Having a healthy immunity system is essential so that you do not fall sick too often while also helping your body fight against harmful cells, viruses and bacteria that can otherwise lead to short-term or long-term illnesses.

In particular, if your body has already been exposed to certain diseases, then selenium might be able to improve your immunity, allowing it to prevent the symptoms from having too much of a chronic impact.

Correlations between the impact of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and selenium levels have also been noted, although additional research is required for this.

Asthma Reduction

Due to the antioxidant properties of selenium, a reduction in the risk or intensity of asthma can also be possible through its healthy intake. Having higher selenium in the body can improve the capacity and working of your lungs.

Further, correlations between maternal selenium levels can also help determine the progression of asthma in children.

Other Potential Benefits

There are several other potential benefits that selenium can have on your health such as lowering the chances of a miscarriage, reducing the likelihood of developing AIDS from HIV and more.

However, there is not enough evidence to prove that taking selenium can definitely have the aforementioned impacts, so make sure you only take supplements if suggested by your doctor.

Foods With Selenium

Maintaining a good intake of selenium through food is the best way to go about it. Some foods with selenium include:

Brazil nuts
Oysters
Eggs
Beef
Turkey
Beans
Lentils
Tuna
Brown rice

what are the health benefits of taking selenium

Daily Recommended Dose

55 micrograms (mcg) of selenium is the daily Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for adults, although pregnant and lactating women can take more, although taking slightly more or less is unlikely to have too much of an adverse impact on your health.

Moreover, the risk of becoming deficient in selenium is quite low.

How To Take Selenium

It is best to take selenium or increase its consumption through food sources by incorporating them into your meals. Taking supplements should only be done on a rare basis if your doctor recommends it.

In fact, too much selenium through regular supplements can end up increasing the harm caused to your body.

Side Effects Of Selenium

If your selenium intake is significantly high (more than 400 mcg) on a daily basis, you might end up experiencing the following side effects:

Nausea
Headaches
Wobbly or unhealthy teeth
Hair loss
Fatigue
Daze/confusion
Disorientation
Irritability

If you notice these symptoms due to your selenium intake, make sure you visit your doctor immediately and regulate your consumption of this mineral.