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To the Editor: Dr Lippman and colleagues¹ concluded that "selenium, vitamin E, or selenium + vitamin E (at the tested doses and formulations) did not prevent prostate cancer." We believe that this statement is potentially misleading because the data relate to the effects of L-selenomethionine supplementation only in a selenium-replete population. The effects of selenium are species specific, with some forms of selenium having greater anticancer benefit than others,² so the null effect of L-selenomethionine supplementation on prostate cancer risk should not be applied to selenium in general.

In addition, the effects are dependent not only on the dose and form of selenium but on the initial baseline selenium status of the population. In a previous study, selenium supplementation was only effective against prostate cancer in volunteers (with a previous history of skin cancer) whose plasma selenium was less than 120 µg/L (to convert to µmol/L, multiply by . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Rachel Hurst, PhD
r.hurst1@uea.ac.uk

Susan Fairweather-Tait, PhD
Biomedical Research Centre
School of Medicine, Health Policy and Practice
University of East Anglia
Norwich, United Kingdom

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Effect of Selenium and Vitamin E on Risk of Prostate Cancer and Other Cancers: The Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial (SELECT)
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