Selenium content of Brazilian foods: A review of the literature values

The purpose of the present study was to review the literature for the selenium (Se) content in Brazilian foods in order to investigate the degree of variation of this element, as well as its main food sources in Brazil. A literature research was conducted using three scientific databases: MEDLINE (United States National Library of Medicine), Latin-American and Caribbean Literature on Health Sciences (LILACS), and Scientific Electronic Library (sciELO), from November to December 2015 to identify studies published in the last 10 years that evaluated the content of Se in Brazilian foods. Subsequently, the data were selected and extracted from the sources. Of the 1616 identified articles, 15 were included in this review, in which Se content was evaluated in 33 foods. The highest averages of Se was found in Brazil nuts (58.1 ± 3.00 μg/g), Brazil nut milk (6.63 ± 2.65 μg/g), carnivorous and non-carnivorous fish (1.63 ± 0.45 μg/g; 1.39 ± 0.074 μg/g, respectively), game meat (1.06 ± 0.45 μg/g), chicken organ meat (0.48 ± 0.13 μg/g), beef (0.38 ± 0.09 μg/g), crustaceans (1.08 μg/g) and egg yolks (0.56 ± 0.19). Most fruits and vegetables presented low levels of Se ( < 0.10 μg/g). The majority of the studies analyzed foods from the Amazon region. This is the first literature review to evaluate the levels of Se in Brazilian foods. These data may be used to evaluate the intake of Se in epidemiological studies.