ReviewJournal of environmental science and health. Part C, Environmental carcinogenesis & ecotoxicology reviews2013
Friend or foe? The current epidemiologic evidence on selenium and human cancer risk.
Review in Journal of environmental science and health. Part C, Environmental carcinogenesis & ecotoxicology reviews, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 24 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
24 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Exposure to Trace Elements and Risk of Skin Cancer: A Systematic Review of Epidemiologic Studies.Cancer epidemiology, biomarkers & prevention : a publication of the American Association for Cancer Research, cosponsored by the American Society of Preventive Oncology · 2019Pooled it
- Selenium exposure and the risk of type 2 diabetes: a systematic review and meta-analysis.European journal of epidemiology · 2018Pooled it
- Selenium for preventing cancer.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2018Pooled it
- Selenium Exposure and Cancer Risk: an Updated Meta-analysis and Meta-regression.Scientific reports · 2016Pooled it
- Selenium for preventing cancer.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2014Pooled it
- Prostate cancer risk reduction: promising prevention practices and insights.Annals of medicine and surgery (2012) · 2025Review
- Prenatal environmental tobacco smoke exposure: a predictor of blood selenium levels in children.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- The correlation between selenium intake and lung function in asthmatic people: a cross-sectional study.Frontiers in nutrition · 2024Article
- Review on the health-promoting effect of adequate selenium status.Frontiers in nutrition · 2023Review
- Selenium and Selenoproteins at the Intersection of Type 2 Diabetes and Thyroid Pathophysiology.Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- Applying Mendelian randomization to appraise causality in relationships between nutrition and cancer.Cancer causes & control : CCC · 2022Article
- Selenium: An Element of Life Essential for Thyroid Function.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Review
- Association of Urinary and Dietary Selenium and of Serum Selenium Species with Serum Alanine Aminotransferase in a Healthy Italian Population.Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- Selenium at theFrontiers in neuroscience · 2021Review
- Selenium Status Is Associated With Insulin Resistance Markers in Adults: Findings From the 2013 to 2018 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).Frontiers in nutrition · 2021Article
- Environmental Selenium and Human Health: an Update.Current environmental health reports · 2018Review
- Selenium-Binding Protein 1 in Human Health and Disease.International journal of molecular sciences · 2018Review
- Causal Inference in Cancer Epidemiology: What Is the Role of Mendelian Randomization?Cancer epidemiology, biomarkers & prevention : a publication of the American Association for Cancer Research, cosponsored by the American Society of Preventive Oncology · 2018Review
- A selenium species in cerebrospinal fluid predicts conversion to Alzheimer's dementia in persons with mild cognitive impairment.Alzheimer's research & therapy · 2017Article
- Health risk assessment of environmental selenium: Emerging evidence and challenges (Review).Molecular medicine reports · 2017Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Scientific opinion on the relationship between selenium and the risk of cancer has undergone radical change over the years, with selenium first viewed as a possible carcinogen in the 1940s then as a possible cancer preventive agent in the 1960s-2000s. More recently, randomized controlled trials have found no effect on cancer risk but suggest possible low-dose dermatologic and endocrine toxicity, and animal studies indicate both carcinogenic and cancer-preventive effects. A growing body of evidence from human and laboratory studies indicates dramatically different biological effects of the various inorganic and organic chemical forms of selenium, which may explain apparent inconsistencies across studies. These chemical form-specific effects also have important implications for exposure and health risk assessment. Overall, available epidemiologic evidence suggests no cancer preventive effect of increased selenium intake in healthy individuals and possible increased risk of other diseases and disorders.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.