I think I'm
going nuts. Brazil nuts. I'll eat one or two a day,
I think. Why? Because researchers are focusing their
interests on Selenium, a mineral that is present in these nuts.
A mineral that has been linked with lower rates of cancer.
Now that's fascinating. Where do we get this idea?
It all started in China. Researchers looked at blood and blood
banks, analyzed it for selenium, took a look at where the blood
came from and it turned out that those people who had high levels
of selenium in their blood had a lower risk of getting cancer.
Interesting enough, but also turns out that in the US in Wyoming
and Dakotas, there's a lot of selenium in the soil, which is concentrated
in the crops and people have a lower rate of cancer. Animal
studies also corroborate this. When rats are pre-feed selenium
supplements and then are exposed to benzopyrene which is a cancer
causing agent, they develop fewer tumors, less often.
But rats aren't humans. So, what about human studies?
Well there
have been some, very interesting ones. In one study, skin
cancer patients were given two hundred micrograms of selenium
on a daily basis to see whether or not it would prevent their
tumors from growing. Well, they have to actually stop this
study short, after four and half years, though they had planned
for longer. Why? Well, the skin cancer wasn't affected,
but patients who were taking these supplements had a lower risk
of prostate cancer, lung cancer, so that was absolutely fascinating.
However, to be honest, I have to tell you that not all studies
have shown such dramatic results. For example in a very
large study, involving 60,000 nurses, toenail clippings, which
are a good measure of selenium in the body, did not show that
selenium was protective against breast cancer. And before
we start indulging in selenium supplements, you have to consider
that there is not a very big therapeutic window here, a hundred
to two hundred micrograms is fine, but at eight hundred micrograms
we begin to see some side-effects. Indeed, animals that
feast on plants that have grown in very very high selenium soil
have been known to kind of stagger about. And, we don't
want to be staggering about blindly, when it comes to taking selenium.
But a hundred
to two hundred micrograms a day is safe enough. Why worry
about taking supplements though? The soil in the Andes mountains
is very rich in selenium. Gets concentrated in the nuts.
About a hundred and twenty micrograms per nut. Brazil nuts may
be… tough to crack. But well worth while trying.
