מתוך medicontext.co.il
DELHI (Reuters Health) – Selenium supplements can prevent and reverse the damage caused by long-term exposure to arsenic, researchers from China report.
Arsenism, which results from long-term exposure to high levels of arsenic in the water and air, has been documented mainly in China, India, Bangladesh, Chile and Hungary, Dr. Wang Wuyi and colleagues write in the November 10th issue of Current Science. It can result in cancers and cause multisystem damage, more so to the skin, mucus membranes, digestive, respiratory and nervous systems, they add.
Dr. Wuyi and colleagues from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, studied the effects of selenium in preventing arsenism in an area with high levels of environmental arsenic contamination. The farm in inner Mongolia where the study was conducted has arsenic levels in water greater than the Chinese acceptable limit of 50 µg/L, the researchers note.
One hundred patients with clinical features of arsenism were given 100 to 200 µg/day selenium in the form of commercially available tablets of selenium yeast for 14 months. The control subjects, 86 individuals from the same farm, received placebo tablets. Both groups were given drinking water free from arsenic contamination during the study period.
The researchers observed that though arsenic levels in the hair, urine, and blood in both groups decreased by the end of the 14-month study, the levels were significantly lower in the selenium-treated group. Clinical improvement was also more apparent in the selenium-supplemented patients, they add.
Recovery according to liver function tests, hepatic ultrasonotomography, electron microscope observation of red blood cells, and electrocardiography were observed in 80%, 60%, 72.22% and 84.78% of patients in the selenium-supplemented group, respectively. This was significantly more than in the controls, the researchers note.
The researchers also observed a positive correlation between arsenic levels in hair and in drinking water. "Our work shows that arsenic in the hair is a good indicator for the level of arsenic in both the environment and human body," they write.
Selenium detoxifies arsenic by combining with glutathione, the researchers postulate. The fact that selenium levels are low in populations at risk of arsenism suggests a role for selenium supplements in these areas, they add.
In an e-mail communication with Reuters Health, Dr. Wuyi said that the research team found selenium supplements to be without any adverse effects. "According to our experiment, selenium can really prevent endemic arsenism," the researcher commented.
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