Searchable abstracts of presentations at key conferences in endocrinology
Endocrine Abstracts (2015) 37 S10.3 | DOI: 10.1530/endoabs.37.S10.3

ECE2015 Symposia Thyroid and autoimmunity (3 abstracts)

Thyroid, selenium and autoimmunity

Lutz Schomburg


Institute for Exper. Endocrinology, Charite Berlin, Berlin, Germany.


The trace element selenium (Se) is unevenly distributed in our earth’s crust causing regional differences in soil Se concentrations. Soil Se directly affects plant Se content and thereby animal and human Se intake. Besides intake, the actual health status and genotype modify Se metabolism and expression of selenoproteins, i.e., Se status. In order to assess the individual Se status, total blood Se concentration or two circulating selenoproteins are determined. According to these biomarkers, the majority of Europeans is Se-deficient while e.g. US Americans are sufficiently supplied. This does however not directly translate into an overt clinical phenotype. Nevertheless, several studies have indicated that a Se deficit predisposes to certain diseases. Importantly, some supplementation studies have yielded positive health effects in autoimmune thyroid diseases, but others have not. Only about half of the studies reported remarkable reductions in TPO autoantibodies or improved quality-of-life in Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, and one supplementation trial of patients with mild Graves’ orbitopathy reported positive effects on quality-of-life and eye disease symptoms – a promising finding which still needs to be replicated. But collectively, the data at hand do not yet advocate general Se supplementation as a therapeutic measure in thyroid autoimmunity. The situation is different when considering epidemiological studies implying that subjects with relatively low Se status have an increased risk for developing goiter, nodules, autoimmune thyroid diseases, infections, cancer and life-threatening complications once severely diseased. These findings – limited as they are – indicate that it appears prudent to avoid a Se deficiency by gentle measures, as successfully done on a population-wide scale in Finland since three decades. It is suggested that preventive biomarker-guided Se supplementation attempts should be considered as a promising health-supporting measure. The talk will raise the awareness for this topic and stimulate a discussion on the respective pros and cons.

Supported by Charité Berlin and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG (Scho849/4-1).

Article tools

My recent searches

No recent searches.

My recently viewed abstracts