2011 Lubos et al.:
Why selenium can improve their speed of recovery:
When you exercise, whether it is in a recreational, competitive or in a rehabilitation setting, the process of producing energy creates reactive oxygen species (ROS).
As ROS increases, there's more oxidative stress on your body, cells and even DNA, which is not a good thing.
One of the reasons that this isn't a good thing is because more oxidative stress means that the energy producing engines of the body, called mitochondria, can't produce ATP as effectively.
The quicker that we can reduce oxidative stress, the quicker we can get patients and athletes back to producing energy at 100%, which means that they can fit in a greater amount of high-quality training or rehab sessions per week.
Here is how to hack this process:
You can rapidly decrease ROS as well as the oxidative stress that it causes by upregulating an enzyme called GPx-1.
Selenium is essential for the activity of GPx-1 (we've known this for years with studies dating back to 1973 from Rotruck et al.)
Protein rich foods were found to contain higher levels of selenium, with a great source being Brazil nuts (Cardoso et al. 2017).
You can increase the bio-availability of selenium by taking it with vitamins A, D and E.
Selenium is also more bio-available in the presence of proteins containing high levels of methionine.
So based on this info, you might be thinking that eggs would be the perfect combo - but keep in mind that selenium bio-availability decreases in the presence of sulfur. Eggs only seem to be a good source if the chickens laying those eggs are eating selenium-enriched fodder.
So if you are like me, and you have some form of nut allergy, what would be a great alternative?
According to a 2016 paper by Kieliszek and Blazejak, Selenium yeast has multiple times more selenium than any other source and the authors suggest that sourdough made from this yeast may be an appropriate and safe form of selenium supplementation.
And as an important bonus, these selenium yeast cells exhibit a strong anticancer effect by reducing the incidence of metastasis and tumors in lungs, breasts and prostates.
References
Lubos E, Loscalzo J, Handy DE. Glutathione peroxidase-1 in health and disease: from molecular mechanisms to therapeutic opportunities. Antioxid Redox Signal. 2011 Oct 1;15(7):1957-97. doi: 10.1089/ars.2010.3586. Epub 2011 Apr 10. PMID: 21087145; PMCID: PMC3159114.
Cardoso BR, Duarte GBS, Reis BZ, Cozzolino SMF. Brazil nuts: Nutritional composition, health benefits and safety aspects. Food Res Int. 2017 Oct;100(Pt 2):9-18. doi: 10.1016/j.foodres.2017.08.036. Epub 2017 Aug 14. PMID: 28888463.
Kieliszek M. Selenium⁻Fascinating Microelement, Properties and Sources in Food. Molecules. 2019 Apr 3;24(7):1298. doi: 10.3390/molecules24071298. PMID: 30987088; PMCID: PMC6480557.
Kieliszek M, Błażejak S. Current Knowledge on the Importance of Selenium in Food for Living Organisms: A Review. Molecules. 2016 May 10;21(5):609. doi: 10.3390/molecules21050609. PMID: 27171069; PMCID: PMC6274134.
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Online Educator at Research Raconteur
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