Serum selenium and lipid levels: Associations observed in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2011-2012

Selenium is an essential micronutrient, and due to its antioxidant activity, is hypothesized to be beneficial to cardiovascular health. However, the evidence for an association between selenium and health markers such as lipid levels has been mixed. This may be due to substantial variability in the level of selenium intake between populations and potential non-linearity of selenium-health outcome associations. We used the 2011-2012 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) to examine the relationship between serum selenium and lipid levels among participants aged 12 years and older. Associations were evaluated using both linear regression models, as well as ordinal logistic regression and quantile regression models to allow for potential non-linear relationships. In all models, potential confounders of sex, age group, race/ethnicity, educational attainment and cotinine were included. Overall, 40% of participants had total cholesterol levels classified as borderline or elevated, and total cholesterol increased with increasing selenium (p=0.01). A similar pattern was seen for triglycerides (p=0.02). LDL cholesterol was also associated with selenium but not in a linear fashion; HDL cholesterol did not vary with selenium. Multivariate quantile regression showed significant associations between selenium and total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, and triglycerides. The effect of selenium was stronger with increasing quantile for total cholesterol and for triglycerides. In contrast, for LDL cholesterol the association was positive in the 10th and 50th percentiles, but (non-significant and) negative in the 90th percentile. These results show that while selenium may impact cardiovascular health via effects on lipid levels, the associations may not be linear.