Selenium supplements raise risk of type 2 diabetes

Bonnie - It is astounding that studies like this get published, much less get splattered all over the media landscape.

In a nutshell, researchers took data from a study looking at the preventive benefits of selenium supplementation on certain forms of cancer and then linked selenium with an increased risk of diabetes (the cancer outcome was positive and the researchers note this).

First of all, nutrition professionals do not prescribe supplemental selenium for diabetes prevention, they do for cancer prevention. In fact, any selenium I prescribe beyond what is in a multivitamin/mineral I do very cautiously because it can be toxic in large amounts.

The researchers admit that the study must be interpreted cautiously because the aim of the study had nothing to do with diabetes!

The researchers admit that diagnosis of type 2 diabetes was self-reported by the subjects, not medically diagnosed.

Unmeasured diabetes risk factors such as family history, body fat distribution, physical activity, and DIET were non existent.

The subject samples were elderly (average age 63.2 years).

Chance cannot be ruled out in the findings because out of the 1200 subjects, 58 got diabetes in the selenium group while 39 got diabetes in the non-selenium group. This has no clinical significance!

Annals of Internal Medicine study