Positive Health Online

Abstract

HARTMAN and colleagues, Nutrition Department, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA, tjh@psu.edu, have connected toenail selenium content and lung cancer in male smokers.

Background

The object of this study was to evaluate the selenium concentrations in toenails as a marker for the risk of lung cancer in smokers in Finland.

Methodology

This case-control study was nested within the Alpha-Tocopherol Beta-Carotene Cancer Prevention Study cohort. The substudy included 250 randomly selected incident lung cancer cases and 250 controls. Odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals were determined using conditional logistic regression methods. The analysis was complicated by the fact that Finland began to supplement agricultural fertilizers with selenium in 1984, which led to drastically increased toenail selenium levels in the general population. Subjects who entered the study before that time generally showed much lower levels of selenium, and this had to be corrected for.

Results

The odds ratios for men in the highest quartile of toenail selenium levels, compared to those in the lowest quartile, was 0.20 for men enrolled pre 1984 and 0.61 for others.

Conclusion

The results of this study show that low selenium status may be a associated with a higher risk for lung cancer.

References

Hartman TJ, Taylor PR, Alfthan G, Fagerstrom R, Virtamo J, Mark SD, Virtanen M, Barrett MJ, Albanes D. Toenail selenium concentration and lung cancer in male smokers (Finland). Cancer Causes and Control 13 (10): 923-928, Dec 2002.

Comment

These result show that men enrolled pre-1984 with the highest selenium levels had 20% risk of lung cancer compared with men in the lowest quartile. In those men enrolled later than 1984, the risk was still less – 61%. A powerful result!