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. 1996 Jul;7(4):384-90.
doi: 10.1097/00001648-199607000-00008.

Use of selenium concentration in whole blood, serum, toenails, or urine as a surrogate measure of selenium intake

M P Longnecker  1 , D O Stram, P R Taylor, O A Levander, M Howe, C Veillon, P A McAdam, K Y Patterson, J M Holden, J S Morris, C A Swanson, W C Willett
Affiliations

Use of selenium concentration in whole blood, serum, toenails, or urine as a surrogate measure of selenium intake

M P Longnecker et al. Epidemiology. 1996 Jul.

Abstract

We examined the validity of using the selenium level in a single biological specimen as a surrogate measure of usual intake. We used data from 77 free-living adults from South Dakota and Wyoming. Subjects provided multiple 1-day duplicate-plate food composites, repeated specimens of blood and toenails, and 24-hour urine collections. We developed a statistical calibration method that incorporated measurement error correction to analyze the data. The Pearson correlation coefficients between selenium intake and a single selenium status measure, after deattenuation to adjust for the effect of within-person variation in intake, were: 0.78 for whole blood, 0.74 for serum, 0.67 for toenails, and 0.86 for urine. We present formulas to estimate the intake of individuals, based on selenium levels in a single specimen of blood, toenails, or urine. In these data, the concentration of selenium in a single specimen of whole blood, serum, or toenails served reasonably well as a measure for ranking subjects according to long-term selenium intake but provided only a rough estimate of intake for each subject.

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