The most important medical message I've EVER posted

I consider this to be one of the most important messages I have posted on this blog since its inception.  Please read the following report and tell your friends about it. It could save lives.  It seems very important to be aware of your selenium blood level -- but I wonder if doctors regularly ask for this information in blood tests for their patients.  My guess is they do not. The following information came from the site: http://www.breastcancerchoices.org/selenium.html

The mineral, selenium, is a powerful antioxidant.  Additionally,
research has found other mechanisms of action of interest to
breast cancer patients.

Linking Selenium Deficiency to Breast Cancer

• In 80 breast cancer patients who had a mastectomy, their
  blood levels of selenium were lower than in healthy
  patients.  In the patients, there was a significantly higher
  concentration of selenium in cancerous tissue, as opposed
  to adjacent healthy tissue.  The higher concentration of
  selenium in cancerous tissue may be attributable in part to
  selenium's defense mechanism (selenium activates the
  antioxidant glutathione) against the carcinogenic process.
  (See Charalabopoulos K et al., Selenium in Serum and
  Neoplastic Tissue in Breast Cancer: Correlation with CEA,
  bjcancer 2006.)
  

• Selenium helps to convert T(4) - thyroxine, the prohormone
  with 4 molecules of iodine into T(3) - triiodothyrone, the
  cellularly active thyroid hormone, with three molecules of
  iodine.  Thyroid hormones help the entire body - raising the
  metabolic rate and balancing physiological functions.
  

• Selenium is an antioxidant, a part of glutathione peroxidase,
  which prevents fats from being oxidized.  During the
  production of thyroid hormones, selenium helps to degrade
  excess hydrogen peroxide that can damage the cells.
  

Selenium Reverses Chromosome Breaks

UPDATE:  Selenium has several anticancer properties, including
protection against oxidation and enhancing nucleotide excision
repair.

Women who carry a mutation of the BRCA1  gene were found to
have more chromosome breaks ( which can lead to breast cancer
) than women who did not carry the mutation.  When women with
the BRCA1 mutation were given selenium for three months, the
number of their chromosome breaks were reduced to normal.

(See Kowalska E et al., Increased Rates of Chromosomes
Breakage in BRCA1 Carriers are Normalized by Oral Selenium
Supplementation, Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and
Prevention 2005. See also Alternative Medicine Magazine, March
2006.)

Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Cancer Study

Although there have been many studies on selenium, we include
it on the list of beneficial supplements for cancer principally
because of the following double-blind, placebo-controlled study
published in JAMA.

Selenium supplements can reduce cancer rates, new study shows

Jan. 7, 1997 Press release

ITHACA, N.Y. -- Men and women taking selenium supplements for
10 years had 41 percent less total cancer than those taking a
placebo, a new study by Cornell University and the University of
Arizona shows. "Although more than a hundred of animal and
dozens of epidemiological studies have linked high selenium
status and cancer risk, this is the first double-blind, placebo-
controlled cancer prevention study with humans that directly
supports the thesis that a nutritional supplement of selenium, as a
single agent, can reduce the risk of cancer," said Gerald F. Combs
Jr., a nutritional biochemist and Cornell professor of nutritional
sciences.

Combs and a group of co-authors reported their findings in the
Jan. 1, 1997 issue of The Journal of the American Medical
Association. The senior author is epidemiologist Larry Clark, who
was at Cornell at the onset of the study and is now at the
Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of
Arizona School of Medicine.

In 1983, the researchers recruited 1,312 randomized patients with
histories of skin cancer at seven dermatology clinics located in
low-selenium areas of the United States (Augusta and Macon, Ga.,
Columbia, S.C., Wilson and Greenville, S.C., Miami, and Newington,
Conn., where consumers ingest an average of about 100
micrograms of selenium a day). The patients were given either a
placebo or a 200-microgram daily supplement of selenium (twice
the average amount these Americans consume in their diet,
thereby tripling their selenium intake).

Skin cancer patients were chosen because they have a 25 percent
annual chance of a recurrence, and skin cancer is easy to
diagnose and can be quickly treated. The researchers set out to
determine whether they could reduce the average recurrence
rate with selenium supplements.

Ironically, 10 years later, the results were not significant for skin
cancer. However, they were "compelling" for overall cancer
incidence and mortality rates, Combs stressed. Of the selenium
group, 69 developed some type of cancer compared with 116 of
the placebo group; 28 of the selenium patients died of cancer
compared with 58 from the placebo group.

"Overall, the selenium group experienced 18 percent less
mortality than the placebo group, and almost all of that difference
was due to some form of cancer," said Combs, who credits Cornell
with having the longest history of research in selenium nutrition
research in the world. "This is the first time anyone has shown
that any single nutrient can result in such a reduction in cancer
risk. The fact that we saw a pattern in lower incidence and
mortality rates across all the clinics gives us even greater
confidence in these findings."

Prostate, esophageal, colorectal and lung cancer rates were
among the most dramatic: patients in the selenium group had 71
percent, 67 percent, 62 and 46 percent reductions in cancer rates,
respectively, than the placebo group.

Selenium blood levels vary widely in populations. Even Americans
with the lowest selenium intake of 60 to 80 micrograms per day --
those living along the Southeastern seaboard and in the Pacific
Northwest -- ingest two to five times more than citizens of New
Zealand and 10 to 20 times more than people living in some areas
of China. Selenium blood levels vary among populations largely
because of wide differences in soil, agronomic practices, food
availability and preferences and methods of food preparation.

The University of Arizona-Cornell research team reported in 1991
that low selenium levels in the blood were linked to increased risk
of neoplastic polyps in the colon, a precursor to colorectal cancer.
And in other studies at Cornell, colleagues of Combs' reported in
1995 that animals fed diets high in selenium had 50 percent fewer
tumors than those fed diets of average selenium content.

Of the 40 nutrients currently recognized as essential for human
nutrition, selenium was the last to be recognized in 1957. A key
component for at least two essential enzymes, selenium provides
the body with antioxidant protection in concert with vitamin E and
is required for normal thyroid hormone metabolism.

The study was funded in part by grants from the American Institute
of Cancer Research, the American Cancer Society and the National
Institutes of Health.

Editor's note: the usual recommended selenium dose is

200 mcg. Selenium works synergistically with iodine and
Vitamin E.