Selenium Continued

This is an extension of my write up about selenium at https://whyiodine.com/selenium. This page is currently a placeholder for some extra info I pulled from the main selenium page to keep that one a little shorter. I will eventually expand on this additional info about selenium.

Iodine can use up selenium, reducing existing levels

Thyroxine deiodinase are a set of enzymes that play a part in turning thyroid hormones on or off which is where T4 is converted into T3. T3 is our active form of thyroid hormone and provides our cells with an important form of energy. This process happens right with glutathione peroxidase, which depends on selenium. So, as iodine becomes available, and more thyroid hormones are being generated as well as T4 converted into T3, more glutathione can be generated, which can start using up more selenium. Low glutathione is common when we don’t feel amazing, so this may help explain how some people are high in selenium even when they are not supplementing, then as they begin to supplement with iodine, those numbers may come down. This is also another reason it’s important to supplement with at least small amounts of selenium, because it’s going to be used up as our body starts being able to use more of the iodine we’re getting. If someone is already high on selenium, they may not need to supplement with more till their body starts using up the excess that was previously unable to be used. Sometimes our levels of selenium can already be high, but taking more selenium allows us to feel better. There is the possibility that our already high levels of selenium are not bio-available(remember the SEPP I mentioned on my main selenium page?), so it’s almost like they don’t exist. It’s possible we may need to continue taking small amounts of new selenium till we are able to break down the old stuck form that’s keeping our levels high. I try to do this with food over time, and take small amounts of supplements. I don’t like to take lots of supplements but I also do not avoid them. I recently located some info stating a minimum of 200mcg of selenomethionine was required for most people to activate SEPP. So it might not be a bad idea to try 200mcg every so often to see how we feel.

I noticed something interesting with Selenium

This is one of the handful of experiences that caused me to finally catch on to the nutrition balancing-act.

A few years into my healing process with the iodine protocol, I happened to be at a very stressful job that was causing me to drink beer again. I was drinking about 4 beers a day, sometimes more, sometimes less. But I started noticing that I was feeling hungover at work and just wanted to put my head down most of the day, so I cut back on beer and noticed that only 1-2 beers was making me feel very poorly the next day. Then one day I realized it seemed like my familiar selenium deficiency feeling. So I took a co-worker’s 200mcg selenium(yea, I happened to bump into someone my age and going through very similar health issues) and instantly felt amazing. About 15 minutes later my stomach started yelling at me and I had to run to the bathroom to make an odd poo out of no where, which to me means I just process some kind of toxin and my body wanted to get rid of it asap.

I decided to experiment with this and kept taking 200-600mcg of selenium each day. A few days later I drank 8 beers each night for a few nights in a row and wasn’t getting the slightest bit of hangover feeling. After about 2 weeks of continuing to put back a good bit of beer, I started to notice a feeling catch up with me again and noticed I wasn’t keeping up on my magnesium. But as I used more magnesium, I would actually feeling more hangover the next day, but also noticed I seemed to be processing some type of toxin. After doing this for a while, I felt like I had just cleaned out some old type of funk, possibly even funk from the beer I’ve drank in the past. I later realized both the selenium and magnesium were supporting different parts of my methylation system. Selenium was helping me clean out toxins, and magnesium was allowing me to process part of the alcohol into another form which then required more processing.

This is another example of how detox most likely works in our body. Once we get enough of the right nutrients, as our body is in the right condition, we poo out bad stuff and feel better. I went over how sulfur and zinc made me go through an awesome detox phase in Low and Slow.

More Resources

Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and the role of selenium.
Current concepts https://whyiodine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/hashimoto-role-of-selenium.pdf

Some signs of selenium toxicity to watch out for https://stopthethyroidmadness.com/selenium/

http://www.livestrong.com/article/519511-important-function-of-selenium/

Technical info about acute toxicity: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3225252/

Really technical info about selenium Selenium and selenoproteins: it’s role in regulation of inflammation

Great info about the relationship between thyroid hormone production and glutathione regeneration as well as a bunch of other info https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article-pdf/95/12/5180/9091620/jcem5180.pdf

ELEMENTS AND THE THYROID https://www.zrtlab.com/blog-media/elements%20and%20the%20thyroid%20info%20guide%2006.16.15.pdf

Related functions and health effects of selenium

From a link inside the “Really technical info” link above: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10787-020-00690-x/tables/4