Higher blood selenium linked to less frailty and lower death risk
Among 6,351 adults aged 40 and older, the link between higher blood selenium and lower frailty leveled off above about 180–190 micrograms per liter.
Our read
Populations- Studied:
- Cohort study of 6,351 adults aged 40 and older, median 4.0 years
- What changed:
- Death from any cause was lower with higher blood selenium (hazard ratio 0.78 per standard-deviation increase)
- The catch:
- Nutrition and inflammation differences could partly explain the links with blood selenium
- Why it’s aging research:
- It measures an outcome that worsens with age.
Editor of record: Boris Djordjevic · AgingResearch.News
The 6,351 adults aged 40 and older participated in the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The cohort study assessed frailty with a 49-item index and estimated selenium intake from dietary recall.
Higher blood levels of selenium, a mineral, were linked to lower frailty, with the association leveling off above about 180–190 micrograms per liter. However, a separate straight-line analysis found no clear association after additional adjustment for nutrition and inflammation markers. Dietary intake had no independent link to frailty. During a median 4.0 years, 755 participants died. Each standard-deviation increase in blood selenium—a measure of variation across participants—was associated with a lower relative death rate from any cause (hazard ratio 0.78). Higher blood selenium was also linked to lower heart disease mortality.
Why it matters
Frailty reflects an accumulation of health problems relevant to aging. The authors suggested that mismatches between selenium intake and blood levels may reflect altered selenium handling in frailty.
Caveats
People with different blood selenium levels may also have differed in nutrition and inflammation in ways the analysis did not fully account for. The authors urged validation before clinical use because selenium has a narrow range between useful and harmful amounts.
- Dietary selenium intake
- Blood selenium
- Heart disease
- 49-item frailty index
- BSE–DRTSE residual index
- Humans
The paper
Chinese PLA General Hospital & National Clinical Research Center for Geriatric Diseases
Journal of the American Nutrition Association, Nov 5, 2026
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