Preliminary Study on the Relationship between Low Environmental Selenium Exposure and Serum Lipids Level among the Elderly Rural Chinese

Objectives To explore the relationship between low environmental selenium exposure and serum lipids level among the elderly rural Chinese.

Methods 198 subjects aged 65 to 80 were randomly sampled from the available Elderly Cognitive Cohort from 4 study on-sites, collecting both nail and early morning intravenous blood samples.The trace amount of selenium was detected by 2, 3-diaminonaphthalenet fluorometric determination method.Serum total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG), high density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C) were detected using enzymatic bio-chemic determination kits.

Results Both the nail and serum selenium overall levels were consistent with environmental selenium level. There were significant difference in serum lipid level between low environmental selenium exposure population and feasible environmental selenium exposure population. Negative correlation was statistically significant between serum selenium and HDL-C, between serum selenium and TG, and also between nail selenium and serum HDL-C in overall population. The correlation between serum selenium and serum lipid indices or serum selenium and nail selenium with serum lipid indices were not consistent among the 4 study sites.

Conclusion Low environmental selenium exposure may associate with serum lipid level among the elderly rural Chinese.