Serum selenium concentration in healthy children living in Tehran.
BACKGROUND
Selenium is one of the essential trace elements which is more notified in children in recent years. Reliable age-specific reference values for selenium in children in Iran are not clear and are important for the identification of selenium deficiency and some other researches that is the aim of this study.


METHODS
Serum samples of 216 healthy children were analyzed by using hydride generation and flame atomic absorption spectroscopy to measured selenium level.


RESULTS
The mean and standard deviation of serum selenium level in children 0-16 years old (mean: 39.83 months) was 72.14+/-16.80 microg/l. There was significant difference in serum selenium concentration between two sexes which was 76.78+/-15.24 microg/l and 69.56+/-17.09 microg/l in girls and boys respectively (P value=0.002). There was also a positive correlation between higher selenium serum concentration and age in both sexes.


CONCLUSIONS
Essential trace element's normal ranges are fundamental data which could use in many studies. Serum selenium concentration in healthy Iranian children that found in this study is very close to serum concentration of European children. Our findings may reveal nutritional culture's similarity.
Safaralizadeh
Reza
R
Immunology, Asthma & Allergy Research Institute, Medical Sciences/University of Tehran, Tehran, I.R. Iran.
Sirjani
Mahshid
M
Pourpak
Zahra
Z
Kardar
GholamAli
G
Teimourian
Shahram
S
Shams
Sedigheh
S
Namdar
Zahra
Z
Kazemnejad
Anoushiravan
A
Moin
Mostafa
M
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007492:Iran; D008297:Male; D012016:Reference Values; D012643:Selenium / Q000097:blood*
D012643:Selenium