Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Sex-dependent association between selenium status and cognitive performance in older adults

  • Short Communication
  • Published:
European Journal of Nutrition Aims and scope Submit manuscript

A Correction to this article was published on 05 January 2021

This article has been updated

Abstract

Purpose

Selenium (Se) is an essential nutrient required for maintaining brain health across lifespan, and adequate nutritional Se status has been positively associated with sustained cognitive performance in older adults. However, critical physiological sex differences in Se metabolism have not been specifically assessed in human studies. Therefore, we aimed to investigate sex differences in the association between Se concentration in whole blood and cognitive performance in US older adults.

Methods

This cross-sectional study included 2016 participants (984 male and 1032 female) ≥ 60 years from the 2011 to 2014 National Health and Nutrition Survey (NHANES). All participants were assessed for whole blood Se concentration and completed the following battery of cognitive tests: Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer’s Disease (CERAD) Word Learning Test, Animal Fluency test, and Digit Symbol Substitution Test (DSST).

Results

In this cohort, all participants presented with adequate Se status (mean 196.7 μg/L; 95% CI 193.5, 200.0), and cohort-wide scores were equivalent to a cognitively healthy population. A sex effect on CERAD recall (P = 0.005) and animal fluency (P = 0.018) was observed in models adjusted for age, diabetes, history of cardiovascular disease, physical activity and body mass index. Se concentration was positively associated with CERAD recall (β: 0.015, 95% CI 0.007, 0.022) and animal fluency (β: 0.017, 95% CI 0.003, 0.030) performance in males only, while no associations were observed for females.

Conclusion

This study provides the first evidence for sex differences in the association between Se status and cognitive performance in older adults.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

Data availability

NHANES data used in this work is publicly available.

Code availability

The codebook of this study will be made available upon request.

Change history

References

  1. Cardoso BR, Roberts BR, Bush AI, Hare DJ (2015) Selenium, selenoproteins and neurodegenerative diseases. Metallomics 7(8):1213–1228

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Cardoso BR, Apolinario D, da Silva BV, Busse AL, Magaldi RM, Jacob-Filho W, Cozzolino SM (2016) Effects of Brazil nut consumption on selenium status and cognitive performance in older adults with mild cognitive impairment: a randomized controlled pilot trial. Eur J Nutr 55(1):107–116

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Seale LA, Ogawa-Wong AN, Berry MJ (2018) Sexual dimorphism in selenium metabolism and selenoproteins. Free Radic Biol Med 127:198–205

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey Data. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes/index.htm. Accessed 23 Aug 2018

  5. Luck T, Pabst A, Rodriguez FS, Schroeter ML, Witte V, Hinz A, Mehnert A, Engel C, Loeffler M, Thiery J, Villringer A, Riedel-Heller SG (2018) Age-, sex-, and education-specific norms for an extended CERAD Neuropsychological Assessment Battery—results from the population-based LIFE-Adult-Study. Neuropsychology 32(4):461–475

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Combs GF Jr (2015) Biomarkers of selenium status. Nutrients 7(4):2209–2236

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Gao S, Jin Y, Hall KS, Liang C, Unverzagt FW, Ji R, Murrell JR, Cao J, Shen J, Ma F, Matesan J, Ying B, Cheng Y, Bian J, Li P, Hendrie HC (2007) Selenium level and cognitive function in rural elderly Chinese. Am J Epidemiol 165(8):955–965

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Berr C, Balansard B, Arnaud J, Roussel AM, Alperovitch A (2000) Cognitive decline is associated with systemic oxidative stress: the EVA study. Etude du Vieillissement Arteriel. J Am Geriatr Soc 48(10):1285–1291

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Li S, Sun W, Zhang D (2019) Association of zinc, iron, copper, and selenium intakes with low cognitive performance in older adults: a cross-sectional study from National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). J Alzheimers Dis 72(4):1145–1157

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Jain RB, Choi YS (2015) Normal reference ranges for and variability in the levels of blood manganese and selenium by gender, age, and race/ethnicity for general US population. J Trace Elem Med Biol 30:142–152

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Vinceti M, Filippini T, Rothman KJ (2018) Selenium exposure and the risk of type 2 diabetes: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Eur J Epidemiol 33(9):789–810

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Waters DJ, Chiang EC (2018) Five threads: how U-shaped thinking weaves together dogs, men, selenium, and prostate cancer risk. Free Rad Biol Med 127:36–45

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. Sandsveden M, Nilsson E, Borgquist S, Rosendahl AH, Manjer J (2020) Prediagnostic serum selenium levels in relation to breast cancer survival and tumor characteristics. Int J Cancer. https://doi.org/10.1002/ijc.33031(Epub ahead of print)

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  14. Siedlecki KL, Falzarano F, Salthouse TA (2019) Examining gender differences in neurocognitive functioning across adulthood. J Int Neuropsychol Soc JINS 25(10):1051–1060

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank A/Prof Darren Saunders of the University of New South Wales and Dr. Erin McAllum at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health for their helpful advice during drafting of the manuscript.

Funding

DJH acknowledged the support of the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) through the Career Development Fellowship program (GNT1122981). This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nutrition, Dietetics and Food, Monash University, 264 Ferntree Gully Road, Notting Hill, VIC, 3168, Australia

    Barbara R. Cardoso

  2. School of BioSciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Dominic J. Hare

  3. The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Dominic J. Hare

  4. Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition (IPAN), Deakin University, Geelong, VIC, Australia

    Helen Macpherson

Authors
  1. Barbara R. Cardoso
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Dominic J. Hare
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Helen Macpherson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

BRC: conceptualization; data curation; formal analysis; writing: original and final draft. DJH: writing: review and editing; HM: conceptualization; writing: review and editing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Barbara R. Cardoso.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

DJH receives research and materials support from Agilent Technologies via the NHMRC Career Development Fellowship (Industry) scheme. The other authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

R. Cardoso, B., Hare, D.J. & Macpherson, H. Sex-dependent association between selenium status and cognitive performance in older adults. Eur J Nutr 60, 1153–1159 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00394-020-02384-0

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00394-020-02384-0

Keywords

Search

Navigation