Can Selenium Cause Diabetes?

re: Can Selenium Cause Diabetes?

stellard — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:52:35 GMT

Selenium has the potential to affect the bottom line of many of the drug makers of cancer, heart, diabetic drugs. I am not convinced by this study. If diabetics is a metabolic disorder, might it not affect the way we metabolize things like selenium as well?... And perhaps it's this inefficiency of metabolizing selenium for helping with enzymes like glutathione be the reason people develop diabetes to be with? Basically the inefficiency of a critical endogenous antioxidant system (of which selenium is a part) being the cause.. and not the selenium itself?

re: Can Selenium Cause Diabetes?

Markk_203 — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 04:15:17 GMT

Regarding selenium supplementation and grains consumption:

I am 69 years old, and take 400 mcg of selenium daily during more than 10 years.

I eat a lot of rolled oats (old fashioned), raw, mixed with grated apples, a couple of ounces of bread daily, honey - and, luckily, no signs of diabetes yet.

re: Can Selenium Cause Diabetes?

JoshandSarahsMom — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 02:37:54 GMT

This may have already been mentioned, but don't selenium and chromium compete with one another? I know chromium has been found to be low in diabetics and is useful in lowering blood sugar.

re: Can Selenium Cause Diabetes?

darloma — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 23:39:07 GMT

Selenium? hmmmmmmmmm. I think that toooooo many carbs tooooooooo many times during a day sets off toooooooo much insulin response. And, if one is healthy, maybe the selenium levels are not checked?????? Maybe we should check some 'nondiabetic' people?????? I am also beginning to wonder if over carbing also caused ALL cirrhosis of the liver. Think about that. We now have kids showing up with nonAlcohilic cerrhosis caused by toooooo many carbs. Just google it.

re: Can Selenium Cause Diabetes?

clintb32 — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:04:39 GMT

Kelly and Healing... Interesting posts, let me add a little. Oxygen is most important and if you look at many of the various deficiencies and cures without discernible reasons, if you look further at the basic mechanisms in the background you will very often find there has been an increase in oxygen transport. Spontaneous cures for cancer have resulted from people becoming ill enough to to have high temperatures, Linus Pauling cured cancer with vitamin C(massive doses by the way). Increased system pH and application of DMSO also promote Oxygen transport. Raising pH and temperature increase the solubility of oxygen in body fluids and DMSO and MSM work in conjunction as an oxygen transport mechanism. Hemoglobin will not release oxygen without first receiving a molecule of CO2, which implies that there is also a CO2 transport mechanism necessary. The existence of these transport mechanisms and others becomes more obvious when you stop to realize that the hemoglobin never leaves the blood vessels and the gap between the blood and cell membrane must be traversed by both oxygen and CO2 and of course the cell membrane must be in good condition. Of course this does not apply to cancerous cells which do not utilize oxygen or give off CO2 but will die off if enough oxygen can be transported to them...Have fun

re: Can Selenium Cause Diabetes?

VG — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:47:21 GMT

I'm really dismayed at the knee-jerk, broad-sweeping pronouncements being made lately based on observational studies. It's lazy, cheap science and we are seeing more and more of it. It has even crept into Mercola's bailiwick as demonstrated by this article.

Observational or epidemiological studies do not prove causation. All they can do is provide information to form hypyotheses.

Well-designed, double-blind placebo controlled intervention studies are needed to prove causation.

re: Can Selenium Cause Diabetes?

GRAYWOLF — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:11:00 GMT

I wonder what effect using selenium sulfide based (dandruff) shampoos has on selenium levels?

re: Can Selenium Cause Diabetes?

RosannaTufts — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:32:52 GMT

And what about the thyroid? Isn't selenium essential for converting the thyroid hormone into its active form?

re: Can Selenium Cause Diabetes?

Croft Woodruff — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:10:51 GMT

The fact that juvenile onset insulin dependent diabetes has been connected with vaccinations - in this instance Hepatitis B shots administered to Grade 6 students (Letters, New Zealand Medical Journal, May 1994) should not be overlooked. Vaccines can set up an autoimmune response in susceptible individuals that attacks and destroys the insulin producing cells leading to insulin dependent diabetes.

Poor digestion because of a lack of hydrochloric Acid in the stomach and malabsorption owing to enzyme insufficeincy resulting in irritable bowel syndrom and chronic constipation are factors NOT to be ignored - but unfortunately are ignored by most physicians of the MD persuasion and surprisingly, many gastroenterologists. Big Pharma profits from this ignorance big time with their sales of anti acids, acid blockers, laxatives etc., etc., ad nauseam.

Stomach cancers, esophagus cancers, pancreatic cancers and bowel cancers can be laid at the door of ignorance of how the digestion system really works.

Waldmeister

re: Can Selenium Cause Diabetes?

charmela — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:56:05 GMT

When I first read this article, it seems like a reason for the FDA to jump in and ban one more supplement. Unrighteously, of course. We do need to know how much is enough, but the FDA takes the population as being stupid, ignorant, and cannot think for ourselves. Then, after reading the comments, and I do agree there may be more to this than what is appearing on the surface. This happens so many times in so-called scientific research. . . 1 + 1 = 2 and never mind other factors! I would be curious as to the real reason the high blood serum level of selenium in diabetics, and maybe it is not a cause. My grandmother and father had diabetes. The doctor says it runs in the family. I would like to know why, and how, and why doesn't every member of the family (we have a large one) have diabetes if it is genetic? Anyway, I must look more into this. My daily supplement contains 70% of the daily requirement of selenium. I'm not sure if we live in an area depleted with selenium in the soil, or whether it is too high. With buying organics, I suppose we need to know this, since most are grown in the area. The vegetables and fruits in the grocery store come from all over, so must be a mixture, which is difficult to determine what kind of soil they are grown in. Our grocery stores here are carrying more and more organics, but unknown where they come from.

re: Can Selenium Cause Diabetes?

jknights3783 — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:41:26 GMT

I totally agree that we as a society are too anxious to assume "if a little is essential, then a lot is quintessential", but aside from the one study that was discontinued due to high diabetes incidence in volunteers it appears as though the information has not definitely proved selenium as a cause for diabetes, since the question remains, "could diabetes be affecting our selenium dependent processes?" So while I am not convinced that selenium has been shown to be a 'cause' of diabetes, I do think this is very valuable in highlighting the fact that we, as a society, should take more things in moderation.

Finally, I am curious what response people have to the statement we should cut grains from our diet. I don't think I could, not should, cut whole grains out of my diet. If you agree with cutting them out, what would you do to ensure your vitamin/mineral levels were being appropriately handled through your diet?

re: Can Selenium Cause Diabetes?

Dillsman — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:32:42 GMT

I'm not buying into the fact that high levels of selenium can cause diabetes........I think it's the other way around.

re: Can Selenium Cause Diabetes?

Don Fletcher — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:32:41 GMT

When we see a large increase in diabetes with significant supplementation, it is not sound to assume that the diabetes caused the people to take the supplements.

However.just a clarification. Most soils everyehere have adequate slelenium. What happens is that with high pH, selenium that is present becomes unavailable to the plants. So, in areas where soil pH is above 8.3 it is standard practice to inject calves and lambs, kids, with selenium at birth. We do not attempt to provide the mother with enough selenium to pass on to the baby.

Just to weigh in on causality. My father's dairy farm was in an area with high pH soil, so limited selenium. One of the persistent remarks that farmers from areas with neutral to acidic soil, our cows looked to be great dairy type, meaning that they did not appear to be carrying a lot of fat on their frame. When those cows were taken to live where soil pH is below 7.6, however, they gained weight. This observation ends when soil pH drops below 5.6.

Selenium is usually readily available to plants even below ph 5.6. I do not know whether selenium is involved in the tendency of cows to stay thin where selenium is in restricted supply. It could be coincidental. There are other elements that are in restricted availability in soil that has high pH. There may also be some areas where selenium is not only restricted in availability by pH but may be in low supply instead.

re: Can Selenium Cause Diabetes?

Pop_203 — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:19:15 GMT

Years ago, When I was running an organic fertilizer plant, I contacted a vendor of minerals to supply me with a blend that would compensate for local deficiencies. He told me that we were low in selenium, but needed to go slow because of the expense. He said the Chinese were buying so much that the price had increased sixfold in a few years. They were applying it to farmland and crops in their low-selenium belt, and were adding it to fertilizers and even table salt. The end result was a big reduction in the incidence of cancer, cardiomyopathy, and hepatitis B and C.

Nexus Magazine had an article on HIV in Senegal, mentioned the Chinese experience and described the lower rates of HIV in high-selenium Senegal. It also said that Senegal had the lowest rate of cancer in the world.

I have a book on minerals and health that describes a study in the 1970's where a group of scientists found that selenium use reduced cancer by roughly 50% among the cancers they were studying. They made the comment that if the FDA found out about it, they would surely ban selenium. It's been going on for a pretty long time.

re: Can Selenium Cause Diabetes?

This American — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:08:50 GMT

I would wonder first what form of selenium was found to be elavated in the blood and if was a bioavailable type. Also alot of research into chromium supplementaion has been done as far back as decades ago and how it is a MUST in the metabolic chain regulating blood sugar levels and for it's affect on hypoglycemia and diabetes. Perhaps things such as lack of chromium etc. play a part in the blood elevated levels of selenium or the lack of some other usable mineral or nutrient that needs to work in this chain to keep things in balance. I agree not enough info here to show just what kind of cause and affect is really going on.