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Selenium and cancer: biomarkers of selenium status and molecular action of selenium supplements

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Abstract

Background

The relationship between selenium and cancer involves many different aspects. These include the forms of selenium present in the diet and in the body, their functions and mechanisms of action, and methods employed in assessing an individual’s selenium nutritional status—both in general, and in epidemiological studies of the risk of cancer in relation to diet, as well as in connection with long-term trials for investigating the disease-preventive potential of selenium supplementation.

Aim of the review

To review different aspects on selenium metabolism, the occurrence of different selenoproteins and their use as biomarkers of selenium status, the results of intervention trials of the cancer-preventive effects of selenium supplementation, the mechanisms of action involved, together with epidemiological findings on relations between the selenium status in the body and risk of cancer.

Results and conclusions

The rapid advance in the knowledge of different selenoproteins and their biological functions has opened up new possibilities for the understanding of the biological effects of selenium supplementation. A wide variety of effects of different forms and doses of selenium has been observed in a number of experimental systems, and it is at present difficult to pinpoint the mechanism that may explain the positive preventive effects of selenium supplementation observed in some human long-term trials. Moreover, additional such trials are needed to define the benefits and risks of different types and doses of selenium supplements which in the future may be implemented for public health reasons. Another necessary focus for future research is a better understanding of the mechanisms by which selenium interferes with the carcinogenesis process.

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Acknowledgements

This review was written as a part of the research integration in the Workpackage “Mechanisms of modulation of cancer by dietary factors” in the NoE Environmental Cancer risk, Nutrition and Individual Susceptibility (ECNIS, no. 513943; www.ecnis.org). Additional support was obtained from the Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning, the Lund University Hospital, and the Påhlsson Foundation. We thank Dr. Gunilla Önning for helpful advice. Biomedical Nutrition is also a member of the EU NoE the European Nutrigenomics Organization (NuGO, no. 505944) which partly supported the study.

Conflict of Interest: None.

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  1. Dept. of Toxicology and Carcinogenesis, Institute of Occupational Medicine, Łódź, Poland

    Jolanta Gromadzińska, Edyta Reszka & Wojciech Wąsowicz

  2. Biomedical Nutrition Pure and Applied Biochemistry, Lund University, P.O. Box 124, 221 00, Lund, Sweden

    Katharina Bruzelius & Björn Åkesson

  3. Dept. of Clinical Nutrition, Lund University Hospital, Lund, Sweden

    Björn Åkesson

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  1. Jolanta Gromadzińska
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Correspondence to Björn Åkesson.

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Gromadzińska, J., Reszka, E., Bruzelius, K. et al. Selenium and cancer: biomarkers of selenium status and molecular action of selenium supplements. Eur J Nutr 47 (Suppl 2), 29–50 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00394-008-2005-z

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