Studies on Human Dietary Requirements and Safe Range of Dietary Intakes of Selenium in China and Their Application in the Prevention of Related Endemic Diseases

The human dietary selenium requirement in China has been estimated by various methods. The minimum dietary selenium requircment for the prevention of Keshan disease (KD) was found to be around 17 μg/d. On the other hand, an intake of 40 μg/d is required to maintain the plasma glutathione peroxidase (GPx) activity at plateau. Hence 40 μg/d is considered as the adequate dietary selenium requirement. Studies conducted in a chronic selenosis area indicate thai the toxic dietary selenlum inlake (adverse effect level), which would maintain the characteristic fingernail changes, was approximately 1600 μg/d. The mean value of dietary selenium intakes, which enabled the five patients to recover from fingernail lesions, was found to be 819 ±126μg/d. At a 95% confidence limit, the lower limit is around 600μg/d. Therefore, 600 and 400μg/d were suggested as the individual daily maximum safe selenium intake and the safe dietary selenium intake, respectively,The results were used in the prevention of Se-related endemic KD and Kashin-Beck disease (KBD)