Both low and high Selenium Levels tied to Insulin Resistance in School children, finds study

A new study published in the Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology showed that regardless of their dietary level, students with selenium deficiency had negative cardiometabolic indicators.

The rise in juvenile obesity throughout the world is a serious concern since it raises the risk of metabolic and cardiovascular disorders in adults. Clinicians use the cardiometabolic profile, which assesses indicators such as blood pressure, insulin resistance, blood glucose, and cholesterol levels, to identify these early concerns. Cardiometabolic health is significantly impacted by dietary micronutrients. Among these, selenium, a crucial trace element for energy balance, antioxidant defense, and cellular metabolism, has attracted a lot of scientific attention.

Selenium and metabolic health, however, continue to have a very mixed association. Safe levels for young populations are still unknown, despite some research highlighting its preventive advantages against metabolic diseases and others warning of possible damage at greater doses.

To shed light on selenium's involvement in early metabolic health, this study examines the relationship between selenium levels and important cardiometabolic indicators in schoolchildren, such as blood pressure, insulin resistance, cholesterol, triglycerides, and fasting glucose.

194 primary school students, ages 6 to 10, participated in a cross-sectional research. Blood pressure, anthropometric measures, and cardiometabolic markers were assessed, including fasting blood glucose (FBG), insulin, total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides (TG), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-c), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-c), and triglyceride-glucose index (TyG). Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) was used to measure serum selenium levels. The correlations between selenium levels and cardiometabolic indicators were evaluated using quantile regression models and nonlinear relationships corrected for dietary status.

The study found that 39.6% of patients had blood selenium levels below 6.0 µg/dL, while 5.2% had levels over 12.9 µg/dL.

Severe selenium insufficiency was linked to increased insulin (β = 1.9; 95% CI: 0.7-3.1), HOMA-IR (β = 0.4; 95% CI: 0.1-0.7), TG (β = 17.0 mg/dL; 95% CI: 1.2-32.8), and TyG (β = 0.2; 95% CI: 0.1-0.4).

A U-shaped connection was discovered between HOMA-IR and blood selenium concentrations (p = 0.016).

Overall, the association between blood selenium levels and cardiometabolic health in Mexican schoolchildren is better understood thanks to this study. Regardless of dietary condition, this study found that low blood selenium concentrations, especially those below 4.5 µg/dL, were strongly linked to greater insulin resistance and raised triglyceride levels.

Source:

Hernández-Mendoza, H., Rios-Lugo, M. J., Klünder-Klünder, M., Miranda-Lora, A. L., Juárez-Flores, B. I., Chávez-Prieto, E., Martínez-Navarro, I., Arreguín-Coronado, A., Alvarez-Loredo, H. E., & Vilchis-Gil, J. (2026). U-shaped association between serum selenium levels and insulin resistance in Mexican schoolchildren. Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology: Organ of the Society for Minerals and Trace Elements (GMS), 97(127928), 127928. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtemb.2026.127928