Original Article
European Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2009) 63, 93–99; doi:10.1038/sj.ejcn.1602889; published online 5 September 2007
Low serum selenium is associated with anemia among older adults in the United States
R D Semba1, M O Ricks1, L Ferrucci2, Q-L Xue1, J M Guralnik3 and L P Fried1
- 1The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, MD, USA
- 2Longitudinal Studies Section, Clinical Research Branch, National Institute on Aging, Baltimore, MD, USA
- 3Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, Bethesda, MD, USA
Correspondence: Dr RD Semba, Johns Hopkins University, 550 North Broadway, Suite 700, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA. E-mail: rdsemba@jhmi.edu
Received 31 January 2007; Revised 22 July 2007; Accepted 23 July 2007; Published online 5 September 2007.
Abstract
Objective:
We hypothesized that low serum selenium was associated with anemia in humans.
Subjects:
A total of 2092 adults aged 65 and older, in the third National Nutrition Examination Survey, Phase 2 (1991–1994) (NHANES III).
Methods:
Examination of the relationship between serum selenium and hematological indices in NHANES III.
Results:
Anemia, defined by World Health Organization criteria, was present in 12.9%. Mean serum selenium among non-anemic and anemic adults was 1.60 and 1.51 
mol l-1 (P=0.0003). The prevalence of anemia among adults in the lowest to highest quartiles of serum selenium was 18.3, 9.5, 9.7 and 6.9%, respectively (P=0.0005). The proportion of adults in the lowest quartile of selenium among those who were non-anemic or who had anemia due to nutritional causes, chronic inflammation, renal disease or unexplained anemia was 9.9, 27.5, 17.5, 24.0 and 15.4%, respectively. An increase in loge selenium was associated with a reduced risk of anemia (odds ratio per one standard deviation increase 0.75, 95% confidence interval 0.58–0.97, P=0.03), adjusting for age, race, education, body mass index and chronic diseases.
Conclusion:
Low serum selenium is independently associated with anemia among older men and women in the United States.
Keywords:
aging, anemia, inflammation, hemoglobin, selenium
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