Cognitive Health |

Did you know that selenium, an essential mineral, has the ability to protect your health in multiple ways?

Selenium is an important mineral for your body and only a small amount is needed (the recommended daily intake is 55 micrograms (mcg). Due to poor soil, taking certain pharmaceutical drugs such as statins, and the normal aging process, selenium is one of the most common mineral deficiencies in the world.

Selenium is linked to many healthy outcomes, including protection from diseases and reduction of disease symptoms.

Six Top Benefits of Selenium

1. Antioxidant and Reduces Oxidative Stress

As an antioxidant, selenium is even more beneficial than vitamins A, C, D, and E and helps to decrease oxidative stress, which is the result of an imbalance in the body between free radicals and antioxidants.

Oxidative stress contributes to a variety of diseases such as diabetes, atherosclerosis (hardening of the blood vessels), inflammatory conditions, high blood pressure, heart disease, neurodegenerative diseases (such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s), and cancers, and contributes to aging.

Supplementing with selenium was reviewed in 13 studies showing significant impact on three antioxidant markers, thus reducing oxidative stress.

2. Boosts Skin Health

In a meta-analysis of 27 studies with a total of 1,315 patients and 7,181 healthy controls, selenium levels were found to be low in patients with four skin diseases: psoriasis, acne vulgaris, chloric acne, and atopic dermatitis.

Another research study of DNA reprogramming of inflammatory cells confirms that higher selenium levels may instill protective properties for genes important for psoriasis prevention and treatment.

Selenium was also found to be beneficial in the treatment of psoriasis in a systematic review of research. In addition, selenium has been related to improvements in skin aging (skin elasticity and skin roughness).

Blood glutathione peroxidase (low levels indicate increased damage to cell membranes due to accumulation of free radicals and signify low selenium levels) was measured in 61 healthy subjects and 506 patients with various skin disorders (i.e., psoriasis, eczema, atopic dermatitis, vasculitis, mycosis fungoides and dermatitis herpetiformis, pemphigoid, acne conglobata, polymyositis, rheumatoid arthritis, scleroderma, and systemic lupus erythematodes) and supplementation with selenium and vitamin E restored the skin’s balance.

3. Benefits Asthma

Asthma (a condition with breathing difficulties, coughing, and sneezing) is a complicated disease to treat and is associated with increased inflammation, oxidative stress, and abnormal immune system function. In a meta-analysis of 40 studies, asthma patients showed significantly lower levels of selenium compared to healthy subjects, suggesting lower selenium intake could be a risk factor for the disease.

As mentioned, selenium, as an antioxidant, has been found to lower oxidative stress. This, in turn, seems to reduce allergic asthma. In addition, dietary selenium as an antioxidant therapy may be important in optimizing asthma treatment and prevention.

In a study of 25 asthmatic patients and 25 healthy subjects, asthmatics had lower concentrations of selenium, increased oxidative stress markers and inflammation, and decreased antioxidant glutathione peroxidase activity and lung function.

Nutritional supplement therapy including selenium balanced oxidant stress, inflammation and immune system responses, pulmonary function, and health-related quality of life in patients with mild to moderate allergic asthma.

4. Helps Prevent and Improve Thyroid Diseases

Selenium is an essential micronutrient for your body and readily found in the thyroid. As a supplement, it can help prevent immune-mediated thyroid disorders by reducing anti-thyroperoxidase antibody levels and improving thyroid ultrasound features.

The prevalence of pathological thyroid conditions (hypothyroidism, subclinical hypothyroidism, autoimmune thyroiditis, enlarged thyroid) was significantly lower in the adequate-selenium group than in the low-selenium group (18% versus 30.5%) in a sample of 6,152 subjects in China.

Selenium administration (200 milligrams per day) significantly improved quality of life, reduced ocular involvement, and slowed progression of 159 patients with mild Graves’ orbitopathy (also called thyroid eye disease).

5. Promotes Heart Health

The combination of high blood pressure, high blood sugar, obesity, and high cholesterol is called metabolic syndrome and when these conditions occur together, they dramatically increase your risk of heart disease, stroke, and Type 2 diabetes.

In a study of 2,069 patients, dietary selenium intake had a moderate negative association with metabolic syndrome. In a study of 501 British volunteers aged 60 to 74 years, supplementation with selenium (100 mcg, 200 mcg, 300 mcg) showed progressive decreases in total cholesterol profiles for those with low selenium levels, but cautions that those with already high selenium intake might be adversely affected by extra selenium supplementation.

In a 12-year follow-up of a group of healthy elderly participants who were supplemented with selenium and coenzyme Q10 for four years, there was a significantly reduced risk for cardiovascular mortality in the treatment group (28.1%) compared to the placebo group (38.7%).

6. Brain Boosting

Alzheimer’s disease, a devastating brain disorder, is characterized by two pathological protein deposits, the senile plaques of amyloid-β and tangles of protein tau. In addition, oxidative stress and neural signal transmission disorders also impact Alzheimer’s.

A large body of studies suggests that selenium (Se), either as Se-containing compounds or as selenoproteins, is involved in most of the molecular pathways that are important in the progression of dementia and therefore have the potential to help prevent or improve Alzheimer’s.

In a mouse model, selenium yeast showed several benefits for Alzheimer’s subjects; it decreased the generation of amyloid-β and enhanced autophagic clearance (old cells are recycled and cleaned out to make room for new cells in the brain), which reduced the burden of amyloid-β accumulation.

Another animal study confirmed that selenium (sodium selenite) significantly decreased tau-positive neurons and reversed Alzheimer’s-like memory and neuropsychiatric symptoms in mice with advanced dementia. Additionally, selenium induced protective effects against experimental dementia-induced brain inflammation and oxidative stress by enhancing the antioxidant system in rats.

In 79 Alzheimer’s patients, probiotic and selenium co-supplementation for 12 weeks improved cognitive function and some metabolic profiles such as lipid, antioxidant, and insulin levels. Selenium and zinc are essential trace elements and an inadequate dietary intake has been implicated in the decline of immune and cognitive functions in aged persons and influences age-related disorders, such as Alzheimer’s and Type 2 diabetes.

Selenium and Health

Selenium, a widely researched essential mineral, is beneficial to your health due to its antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, neuroprotective, immunomodulatory (regulates immune functions) and cardioprotective properties.

Be sure to pick up your Selenium Supplement on your next visit to Whitaker’s Natural Market!

Portions of this Health Tip are from GreenMedInfo.

Is Multitasking a New Phenomenon?
Multitasking means doing more than one thing at a time. Author Greg McKeown notes, in his book Essentialism, that prior to the 20th Century, the word “priority” had no plural form in English. A priority was the one thing you focused on, period. But in the 1900s, as people were faced with more choices and industrialization made us more mobile, we found we had more than one “priority” at a time and had to rank order, and so the word “prioritize” came into the language.

It’s noteworthy that UCLA Professor Monica Smith contends, in her book A Prehistory of Ordinary People, that our ancestors multitasked, but she’s talking about things like picking fruit while watching out for attacking animals. Most would argue that the mental demands of modern-day multitasking—talking on the phone while cruising E-Bay, for instance—are of a different order.

Prevalence of Extreme Multitasking
Since the advent of portable devices and personal computers, multitasking has taken on new meaning. In the mid Twentieth Century, multitasking meant things like washing the dishes while watching As The World Turns. But now, according to Dr. Clifford Nass of Stanford University, “The top 25 percent of Stanford students are using four or more media at one time whenever they’re using media. So, when they’re writing a paper on their computer, they’re also Facebooking, listening to music, texting, Twittering, etcetera.” The difference isn’t merely in the number of activities they’re involved in at one time but also in the type of attention required. Washing dishes can be done without much mental concentration, but texting, Facebooking, reading Twitter messages—these things require left-brained focus.

Dr. Anthony Wagner of Stanford University, a leading researcher in the field of multitasking and memory, explains that we aren’t actually capable of true multitasking, but rather, we “task switch.” Those who “multitask” might watch a TV show but check their phone during a commercial. In contrast, a heavy multitasker might be writing a paper with the TV on, checking Facebook every five minutes, and responding to emails or texts as they come in.

A study published by the National Academy of Sciences found that youth under the age of 18 spend an average of nine hours a day using media, and 29 percent of that time, they’re using multiple media streams at once. And a 2018 study investigating the accuracy of telephone surveys determined that more than half of respondents were engaged in at least one other online activity while taking the survey.

Likewise, a 2003 study in the International Journal of Information Management reported that the average person checks email once every five minutes. Even more, after checking email, it takes a little over a minute to resume the previous task. Yet most of us disconnect from email for only two hours a day, at most.

What Multitasking Does to the Brain
When you have a task to do, your brain’s prefrontal cortex hops into action. It coordinates the left and right sides of the brain with other neurological processes to create the needed focus. When you attempt to do several tasks at the same time, the prefrontal cortex splits up the tasks between the right and left hemispheres. It takes a minute for the brain to recover enough to coordinate the two hemispheres so that complete focus can resume, as noted above in the description of what happens after checking email. Experts call this lost time the “switching cost.” Studies show that the switching cost can lead workers to lose up to 40 percent of their productivity.

Cognitive Effects of Multitasking
According to Dr. Nass, who wrote The Man Who Lied to His Laptop, “The research is almost unanimous, which is very rare in social science, and it says that people who chronically multitask show an enormous range of deficits. They’re basically terrible at all sorts of cognitive tasks, including multitasking.”

A recent study on multitasking published in the 2018 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reviews 10 years of studies on the effects of multitasking on cognitive performance. The researchers confirmed that heavy multitaskers do indeed perform significantly worse on memory tasks as well as on attention tasks. Dr. Nass says that media multitasking actually changes the brain by training the brain to “focus on irrelevancy. [Multitaskers] just can’t keep on task.” He also says that it’s unknown if the brain that’s been trained to task switch can be trained back to have good focus because it’s too difficult to find subjects willing to give up media for a long enough time to complete clinical studies.

How to Avoid the Negative Effects of Multitasking
The easiest way to prevent brain changes caused by media multitasking is to turn on only one device at a time and shut down extra windows. Other simple changes can make a big difference, too.

Turn off all notifications, whether they ding, ping, or flash across the screen and do so on all your devices, including your phone.

Set your timer for 15 or 20 minutes and do only one thing for that entire duration.
Process your emails in batches so that you spend 20 minutes, for instance, looking at all your emails for the day and then later another 20 minutes responding. Avoid peeking between designated email sessions to check what’s come in.

If you have writing to do, go somewhere that has no internet connection—or simply turn off your internet connection while working.

If it’s possible for you, go on a media fast and take note of how you feel and whether you notice differences in your ability to concentrate.

While I can be just as guilty as anyone, I’m learning to make sure I concentrate on the important things in life – my relationship with God, my family, and my health as well as my interactions and relationships with others. Have trouble focusing? We do have many supplements for cognitive health at Whitaker’s!

Tag: Cognitive Health

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