Report on the 1986 A.S.P.E.N. Research Workshop on selenium in clinical nutrition

Selenium in human nutrition was the theme of the 1986 Research Workshop of the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition. At the workshop, evidence for the nutritional essentiality of selenium to humans was reviewed, and it was concluded that Keshan disease, the cardiomyopathy of children and young women described in China, is now firmly linked to selenium deficiency, although other factors may be involved. Selenium metabolism and techniques for assessing selenium status also received attention at the workshop. A measurement of blood selenium levels was accepted, in general, as a valid technique for assessing selenium status in individuals with relatively constant selenium intakes. Clinical practitioners at the workshop reported that some of their total parenteral nutrition patients not receiving selenium presented biochemical evidence of selenium deficiency, but no characteristic clinical syndrome due to selenium deficiency has yet been observed in such patients. The workshop attendees acknowledged the need for an official guideline for selenium use in total parenteral nutrition, but were unable to develop a consensus regarding such a guideline. However, the workshop agreed that any guideline established in the future should specify the type of patients to be supplemented, the dose of selenium to be administered, and the selenium compound to be used. Until that time, the physician supervising the therapy must assume responsibility both for determining the need for selenium supplementation, and for the administration of the supplemental selenium.