Does Selenium Prevent Cancer? It Depends On Which Form You Take

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I haven't read through this but may have some interesting info....

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2689862/posts

Scientists are reporting that the controversy surrounding whether selenium can

fight cancer in humans might come down to which form of the essential

micronutrient people take. It turns out that not all " seleniums " are the same —

the researchers found that one type of selenium supplement may produce a

possible cancer-preventing substance more efficiently than another form of

selenium in human cancer cells. Their study appears in the ACS' journal

Biochemistry.

Hugh and colleagues note that although the Nutritional Prevention of

Cancer clinical trial showed that selenium reduced the risk of cancer, a later

study called the Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial did not show a

benefit. A major difference between the trials was the form of selenium that was

used. To find out whether different types of selenium have different

chemopreventive properties, the researchers studied how two forms—SeMet and

MeSeCys—are processed in human lung cancer cells.

The researchers found that MeSeCys killed more lung cancer cells than SeMet did.

Also, lung cancer cells treated with MeSeCys processed the selenium differently

than than cells treated with SeMet. They say that these findings could explain

why studies on the health benefits of selenium sometimes have conflicting

results.