Dietary selenium intake and asthma in US children and adolescents

Evidence concerning total dietary selenium intake in the US pediatric population remains sparse and inconsistent. This study employs a nationally representative dataset to investigate the association between selenium intake and asthma prevalence, addressing this critical knowledge gap.

The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) (2011-2020) furnished data on asthmatic individuals aged < 20 years with quantified dietary selenium intake. Utilizing rigorous statistical methodologies - multivariable logistic regression, restricted cubic spline (RCS) modeling, and subgroup analyses - the authors evaluated the selenium-asthma association.

In this study encompassing 7780 pediatric participants, multivariable logistic regression with comprehensive covariate adjustment revealed progressively higher asthma risk with increasing selenium exposure. Compared to the lowest intake tertile (Q1: ≤ 73.3 mg/day), adjusted ORs were 1.15 (95% CI: 0.98-1.35; p = 0.082) for Q2 (73.4-112.6 mg/day) and 1.24 (95% CI: 1.00-1.54; p = 0.048) for Q3 (≥ 112.7 mg/day). Subsequent restricted cubic spline modeling quantitatively established a significant dose-response relationship (p = 0.042) between dietary selenium levels and asthma risk.

Dietary selenium intake demonstrated a significant dose-dependent association with asthma prevalence among US pediatric populations.