Circulating Selenium and Cardiovascular or All-Cause Mortality in the General Population: a Meta-Analysis

The association of circulating selenium level with mortality remains controversial. This meta-analysis investigated the association between elevated circulating selenium level and cardiovascular or all-cause mortality in the general population. PubMed and Embase databases (up to January 20, 2019) were searched for observational studies or post hoc analyses of randomized controlled trials that evaluated the association between elevated circulating selenium level and cardiovascular or all-cause mortality in the general population. Twelve observational studies (ten cohort and two case-control studies) with a total of 25,667 individuals were included. Comparison with the lowest and the highest circulating selenium level showed that the pooled risk ratio (RR) values of all-cause mortality and cardiovascular mortality were 1.36 (95% confidence intervals [CI] 1.18–1.58) and 1.35 (95% CI 1.13–1.62), respectively. When analyzed selenium level as a continuous variable, each standard deviation selenium increase significantly reduced 20% all-cause mortality risk. However, the lowest circulating selenium level was not associated with a high risk of coronary mortality (RR 1.43; 95% CI 0.93–2.19). This meta-analysis indicated that low circulating selenium level was associated with higher risk of cardiovascular or all-cause mortality in the general population. Low circulating selenium level did not confer significant effect on coronary death.