What are the side effects of taking too much selenium

Selenium is an essential trace element for human health and plays a key role in our health. Therefore, many people are accustomed to blindly supplementing selenium. What they don’t know is that excessive selenium supplementation can also cause some negative effects on the body. These include numbness of the limbs, skin aging, and in severe cases, gastrointestinal dysfunction. Therefore, people need to pay attention to nutrition and supplement it scientifically according to their own needs.

1. Side effects of selenium supplementation

Excessive selenium supplementation in the human body may cause symptoms such as dull skin pain sensation, numbness of the limbs, dizziness, loss of appetite, hair loss, thickening of nails, rash, itchy skin, pale complexion, gastrointestinal dysfunction, indigestion, and garlic odor on the breath.

Selenium can be supplemented through diet. Pay attention to eating more selenium-rich foods, such as asparagus, mushrooms, purple sweet potatoes, animal liver and offal, seafood, oysters, turtles, etc., which are all good.

In addition to dietary supplements, selenium supplements are also an important method. However, due to individual differences in selenium absorption, dietary supplements are generally inefficient. In addition, due to different individual needs, dietary supplements are difficult to meet different needs.

2. The harm of excessive selenium supplementation

The University of Warwick in the UK recently issued a communiqué saying that a team led by researchers from the university investigated the eating habits and nutritional status of more than 1,000 people. The results showed that people with higher selenium levels in their blood also had higher levels of "bad cholesterol" than others, and the increase was enough to cause many people to die prematurely from coronary heart disease.

The communiqué emphasized that among the respondents with higher selenium levels in their bodies, 48.2% said they regularly took various selenium supplements. Researchers say that since selenium was found to have certain anti-cancer and health-care effects, many people have begun to take large amounts of selenium supplements. This excessive practice may lead to new health problems.

Selenium is element number 34 in the periodic table and has antioxidant properties. Selenium deficiency in the body can easily lead to diseases such as myocardial necrosis. Reasonable selenium supplementation can enhance the body's immunity, help fight cancer and delay aging. But over-supplementation can be counterproductive.

3. Recommended methods for selenium supplementation

The "Daily Dietary Nutrient Allowances" revised by the Chinese Nutrition Society in October 1998 has listed selenium as one of the 15 daily dietary nutrients, and proposed that the appropriate daily selenium intake for an adult is 50-250 micrograms. "Food supplements are worse than medicine supplements" is the traditional understanding of the Chinese people. Ordinary flour, brown rice, barley, fish, shrimp, seaweed, animal liver, animal kidney, garlic, onions, asparagus, carrots, etc. all contain selenium. It should be pointed out that a high selenium content in food does not mean that humans can absorb it highly. Generally speaking, humans have a high utilization rate of organic selenium, which can reach over 70%. Therefore, the correct way to supplement selenium is to eat more foods that are fortified with organic selenium, and eat more fruits, vegetables and other foods rich in vitamins A, C and E to promote selenium absorption.