Benefits of Vitamins and Minerals and especially Selenium
Selenium, a mineral, has a role in maintaining healthy tissues and a healthy immune system. There is observational evidence over the last 50 years that a deficiency of selenium leads to susceptibility for tumor growth and certain viral infections to progress. It has been observed that people with adequate selenium levels, along with other micro-nutrients like vitamin E and beta carotene, have few tumors in various tissues like lung, prostate and gonads than age matched people in the same area who had low levels. The difference appears to have been strictly related to diet.
Now, it was an Internet colleague, Bette Dowdell, that recently published a book called Pep for the Pooped that reminded me of Selenium and its role in health. I read a study years ago that said the lowest selenium levels in the country were here in NC. The soil here is apparently very low in this mineral. So, if you live in NC, maybe you should supplement with food grown in other areas, like Brazil nuts once a week or a good mineral tablet. The way Bette reminded me was by giving me a free chapter of her book. The chapter was about, you guessed it, Selenium.
You can get your own chapter of Pep for the Pooped. Read up on Selenium, take a look at Bette’s PowerPoint about quotes (really worth it – I love her quote about Tattoos and Cellulite & weight and money), and consider buying the book. It is a quick read, as you will see is full of easily understood information and she gives good guidelines for implementation. She has a disclaimer – seek medical advice in certain situations. She has to do it for her own protection in many ways but you and I both know that our Doctors don’t know much about nutrition and they have seen so many scams and claims of great results go belly up in the scrutiny of the full medical community that they are a little jaded and very skeptical. Then there is the issue of getting advice and having it paid for by insurance or receiving it at a reasonable price.
Here is my disclaimer. You are responsible for your health. You want it to be easy. You want access to good information and the truth about things. The truth is hard to come by because there is a lot of profit in feeding you half truths. I don’t know it all, but I am searching for great sources that have integrity and humility. Those are hard to come by. People with great knowledge who have dedicated their lives to a line of research that has yielded very thin and inaccurate results get married to those results and do not want them challenged. When you do they often cite their superior knowledge and experience as to why you are wrong. Beware of such attitudes! I was once told by a man I am sure is unfriendly to those he considers his inferiors (that was everyone except those who had some kind of power over him like the chairman of the department) that, “He had forgotten more than I knew.” That may have been true but I was a student and he was charged with teaching me. I really could never learn much from him because it was delivered with so much ego I could not tell what was fact from his own prejudice. Einstein once said, ” Common sense is the accumulated prejudices we have by age 18.” That is more a paraphrase that a quote but you get the idea.
OK, I have pounded this idea a bunch, so now I will let up. Let me know your experience in this. Am I isolated and jaded or do you have similar thoughts and feelings on the subject of truth and knowledge in preventative medicine.
