Please Disregard the Recent Selenium Scare

Recently two cheap multiple vitamins called "Total Body Formula" and "Total Body Mega Formula" were found to contain hazardous levels of the mineral selenium. The US Food and Drug Administration received 43 reports of adverse effects, and advised consumers to stop using both products. Meanwhile the sole US distributor of "Total Body Formula" and "Total Body Mega Formula" has voluntarily recalled both products.

So what do we learn from this?

I hope not the wrong lesson.

Selenium is quite simply one of the most powerful minerals on the planet for human health. It's been found to be associated with lower rates of cancer, especially prostate cancer. Published research has shown that the progress of HIV-AID's patients is strongly correlated with their selenium levels- those with the lowest levels do worse, those with higher levels do much better. Selenium also chelates to toxic metals like mercury making it easier for the body to detoxify them.

So please- please- don't be scared off of selenium. I consider it one of the most important supplements you can take, either alone or in a multiple vitamin. Most of us do not get enough for optimal health and protection.

I recommend at least 100-200 mcg of selenium a day, and use 400 mcg in my hepatitis C protocol, based on the recommendations of Bert Berkson, MD, PhD, who calls selenium "birth control for the virus". (I wrote about the hepatitis C protocol in "The Most Effective Natural Cures on Earth". )


The amount of selenium found in the products that were recalled was 40,800 mcg. Did you get that? 40,800 mcg. That's roughly between twenty and forty thousand times the amount found in most supplements such as the ones in our website store.

The lesson here is not that selenium is a dangerous nutrient. The lesson here is that it makes sense to buy high quality vitamins with enormous quality control made in small batches by reputable companies, like the ones available through health providers. I can guarantee you there will never be a scare like the "Total Body" product with any of the companies I recommend and link to on my website store. It just ain't gonna happen. Ever.

The anti-vitamin brigade will probably jump on this as an excuse to trash the "unregulated" vitamin industry. Consider the source. More medicines have been recalled or taken off the market for life-threatening side effects in the last couple of years than there have been vitamin "scares" in the last two decades! (The symptoms of selenium toxicity are a garlicy breath, brittle fingernails and fatigue, none of them life threatening. They clear up once you reduce the dose, which you'll never have to do at the doses nutritionists like me recommend.) You have absolutely nothing to fear from supplements with selenium, especially if you buy from the top companies.