Lower serum selenium concentration associated with anxiety in children

Selenium and Its Compounds in the Treatment of Anxiety and Related Disorders: A Scoping Review of Translational and Clinical Research

“…The results of this research are mixed, with more consistent results being obtained in clinical samples. Two studies of Chinese children found that serum selenium was significantly associated with both overall and specific symptoms of anxiety [64] but failed to find an association between urinary selenium and symptoms of childhood anxiety [65]. A single study of adults in the general population found no association between a seleniumrich diet (defined as a diet rich in grains and dairy by the researchers) and symptoms of anxiety; however, selenium intake was not specifically quantified in this sample [62].…”

“…Seven studies measured dietary selenium intake, peripheral levels of selenium, or specific biomarkers considered to be related to selenium, in human subjects with either anxiety disorders or symptoms of anxiety [59][60][61][62][63][64][65]. These studies are summarized in Table 2.…”

Selenium and Its Compounds in the Treatment of Anxiety and Related Disorders: A Scoping Review of Translational and Clinical Research

“…The results of this research are mixed, with more consistent results being obtained in clinical samples. Two studies of Chinese children found that serum selenium was significantly associated with both overall and specific symptoms of anxiety [63], but failed to find an association between urinary selenium and symptoms of childhood anxiety [64]. A single study of adults in the general population found no association between a selenium-rich diet (defined as a diet rich in grains and dairy by the researchers) and symptoms of anxiety; however, selenium intake was not specifically quantified in this sample [61].…”

“…At least a portion of this variation could be due to differences in study methodology -studies measuring dietary selenium intake through questionnaires, or urinary selenium, were more likely to yield negative results [61,64], as were studies involving healthy individuals with no known medical or psychiatric diagnosis [61,62]. Other methodological factors likely to be involved include the nature of the questionnaires used for the assessment of anxiety; for example, a study making use of a multi-dimensional assessment of different types of anxiety was able to establish a tentative link between serum selenium and some of the dimensions of anxiety [63]. Finally, an important confounding factor in research of this sort is baseline selenium intake, which varies widely across countries depending on dietary practices and soil selenium levels [78,79].…”

“…(a) studies of selenium, selenoproteins and selenium-containing compounds in relation to anxiety in animal models (n = 16) [42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57] (b) observational studies measuring dietary selenium intake, levels of serum selenium or other selenium-related biomarkers in patients with either anxiety disorders or symptoms of anxiety (n = 7) [58][59][60][61][62][63][64] (c) clinical trials of selenium or selenium-containing supplements in the prevention or management of anxiety and related disorders (n = 7), including two studies of selenium and five studies of selenium as one of the components of a nutritional supplement. [65][66][67][68][69][70][71] Due to the heterogeneity in patient populations, study objectives and outcome measures in the clinical trials, a formal meta-analysis was not undertaken for these studies.…”