Taking selenium supplements may help reduce the risk for prostate cancer, according to a review study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
Susan J Fairweather-Tait of Norwich Medical School Norwich in Norfolk, United Kingdom and colleagues meta-analysed data from 13,254 participants and 5007 cases of prostate cancer in twelve studies and found sufficient selenium was associated with nearly 70 percent reduced risk for prostate cancer.
Increased serum selenium levels up to 170 ng/mL were associated with reduced prostate cancer risk. Three high quality studies of toenail selenium and prostate cancer risk showed a 71 percent reduction in the risk in men with a toenail selenium concentration between 0.85 and 0.94 ug/g.
Selenium is an antioxidant and has been long suspected to be able to prevent or redcue risk of some cancers.
Prostate cancer is expected in about 230,000 men in 2012 in the U.S. and the disease and its complications kill nearly 40,000 annually in the same country, according to the National Cancer Institute.
There are many things men can do to reduce the risk of prostate cancer. One thing they may not want to do is participate in the PSA based prostate cancer screening. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force in Rockville, Maryland recommends against prostate specific antigen (PSA) based screening for prostate cancer in men at any age simply because this screening does more harm than good.
