Selenium and its Superpowers

She's getting ready in the morning. Looking in the mirror with a brush in one hand and a hair tie in the other. She looks in the mirror at dark circles under her eyes. She looks down at her hair brush, nails brittle and chipped. She wonders why she feels so tired even after having a good night's sleep.

A hard-to-detect selenium deficiency can impact up to 40% of people even in the most advanced countries,

Let's talk about all of the amazing things that selenium can be used for:

• First, selenium is important to thyroid health. Selenium changes the inactive form of the main hormone into the active form.

• Selenium is also important to the immune system. It helps with HIV and both hepatitis B & C. There's also some research that it is involved in cancer prevention.

• Selenium can also protect the body against toxic heavy metals such as lead, arsenic, cadmium, and mercury.

• Selenium is also involved in hormones. For example, low selenium can cause low sperm count in men. This can lead to reproductive issues such as trouble having a baby. Selenium is also involved in women’s reproductive organs, it regulates progesterone in the monthly cycle.

• Selenium may even have a role in histamines and mast cells. For example, a selenium deficiency can cause the gut to create more histamine and even for the gut to make more histamine receptors. This can be important for women with premenstrual dysphoric disorder.

How do you get selenium in your diet:

• BRAZIL NUTS are the easiest way. Caution: these have as much selenium as a selenium supplement. It’s important to only take 1-2 per day. Don’t eat a bag of these or you can risk selenium toxicity.

• Selenium is bound to protein foods. Foods such as tuna, sardines, and shrimp are somewhat high (caution that shrimp is high cholesterol).

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AI may be used in some writing for sentence structure and paragraph organization. However, all ideas are based on my own clinical judgement and evidence-bases such as scientific studies and professional guidelines.