Table of Contents
About Selenium
Food Sources of Selenium:
- Brazil nuts
- Brewer’s yeast
- Broccoli
- Brown rice
- Cabbage
- Celery
- Chicken
- Corn
- Cucumbers
- Dairy products
- Dulse
- Fish
- Garlic
- Kelp
- Liver
- Molasses
- Mushrooms
- Onions
- Organ meats
- Oysters
- Nuts
- Salmon
- Seafood
- Sesame seeds
- Torula yeast
- Tuna
- Vegetables
- Wheat bran & germ
- Whole grains
Herb Sources of Selenium:
- Alfalfa
- Burdock root
- Catnip
- Cayenne
- Chamomile
- Chickweed
- Fennel seed
- Fenugreek
- Garlic
- Ginseng
- Hawthorn berry
- Hops
- Horsetail
- Lemongrass
- Milk thistle
- Nettle
- Oat straw
- Parsley
- Peppermint
- Raspberry leaf
- Rose hips
- Sarsaparilla
- Uva ursi
- Yarrow
- Yellow dock
Other Sources of Selenium – Brand Names:
- Sele-Pak
- Selepen
- Selenious Acid (injectable)
- Immuplex (Standard Process Labs)
- Cataplex E (I sell lots of this–it appears to be a very good product)
Signs of Selenium Deficiency:
- Aging skin
- Associated with exhaustion
- Chest pains
- Hair loss
- High cholesterol levels
- Hypothyroidism
- Impaired growth
- Infections
- Linked to cancer
- Linked to heart disease
- Liver impairment
- Pancreatic insufficiency
- Reduced immune activity
- Sterility
Health Concerns – What Selenium is used for:
- Asthma
- Atherosclerosis
- Cancer risk reduction
- Hypothyroidism
- HIV support
- Macular degeneration
- Osgood-Schlatter’s disease
- Pap smear (abnormal)
- Retinopathy (combined with vitamin A and vitamin E)
What Selenium Does:
- Alleviates hot flushes and symptoms of menopause
- Can detoxify alcohol, many drugs, smoking, and some fats
- Helps treat dandruff
- Improves liver function
- Increases male potency and sex drive
- Maintains good skin
- Maintains healthy eyes and eyesight
- Maintains healthy hair
- May work to impede the aging process
- Needed for pancreatic function
- Needed for tissue elasticity
- Needed to activate thyroid hormones
- Prevents many cancers
- Protects against heart and circulatory diseases
- Protects the body from free radical damage and heavy metal toxicity
- Stimulates immune system
- Useful addition to the treatment of arthritis
Cautions & Comments About Selenium:
- Selenium can be toxic in very small doses
- Selenium supplementation should be taken with vitamin E to ensure that selenium works most efficiently.
- Symptoms of excess include blackened fingernails and a garlic-like odor on the breath and skin
- Take no more than 500 mcg. daily unless supervised by a registered practitioner.
Helpful Links and Resources Regarding Selenium:
Trending
- All about Selenium (Good nutrition charts), but note that this is one of those supplements that if a little is good, a lot is not necessarily better. That’s why I push whole foods. Hard to overdose that way: https://dietary-supplements.info.nih.gov/factsheets/selenium.asp and
- https://www.drugs.com/cons/Selenium_Supplements.html