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Selenium Enigma: Health Implications of an Inadequate Supply

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Modern Dietary Fat Intakes in Disease Promotion

Part of the book series: Nutrition and Health ((NH))

Key Points

Selenium (Se) plays an important role in health maintenance, and optimization of Se status of the general population is an urgent task for many countries worldwide.

Low Se availability from European soils due to fertilization decreased dramatically. Se availability for plants leads to low Se concentrations in grains and in animal-derived products and ultimately in human diet.

Supplementing animal diets with Se in the form of sodium selenite or selenate does not affect substantially Se concentration in eggs, meat, and milk.

SeMet represents the major form of Se in animal-derived foods and must be provided with diets for solving Se deficiency problems through production of Se-enriched eggs, meat, and milk.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Avian Science Research Centre, Scottish Agricultural College, Ayr, UK

    Peter Surai

  2. Division of Environmental and Evolutionary Biology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK

    Peter Surai

  3. Laboratory of Nutritional Physiology and Feeding, Faculty of Animal Science and Aquaculture, Agricultural University of Athens, Athens, Greece

    A.C. Pappas

  4. Department of Animal Science, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Yuzuncu Yil, Van, Turkey

    F. Karadas

  5. Alltech Russia, Moscow, Russia

    T.T. Papazyan

  6. All-Russian Research and Technology Institute of Poultry Production, Sergiev Posad, Russia

    V.I. Fisinin

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    Ronald Ross Watson

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Surai, P., Pappas, A., Karadas, F., Papazyan, T., Fisinin, V. (2010). Selenium Enigma: Health Implications of an Inadequate Supply. In: De Meester, F., Zibadi, S., Watson, R. (eds) Modern Dietary Fat Intakes in Disease Promotion. Nutrition and Health. Humana Press, Totowa, NJ. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-60327-571-2_25

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