
An international study led by academics at The University of Nottingham has shown that dietary deficiency of the mineral selenium - which plays a vital role in keeping the immune system healthy and fighting illness - is likely to be endemic among the Malawi population.
They found that most Malawi soils cannot supply enough selenium for adequate human nutrition and, in a paper published in the journal Scientific Reports, they call for further investigation into the benefits and costs of using selenium-enriched fertilisers and other strategies to boost levels within the country's food.
Leading the study was Dr Martin Broadley, of the University's School of Biosciences, he said: "Selenium is a naturally occurring mineral of fundamental importance to human health, with critical roles in immunity. People with low dietary selenium intakes are at increased risk of suffering from a variety of diseases…
Electron shell diagram for selenium by Pumbaa, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales license
No comments:
Post a Comment