Selenium is a dietary mineral, one of the 32 nutrients considered to be essential for human health. But it’s also one that many acne patients could use more of.
Selenium is found most widely in animal foods like fish, eggs, and meat. Consequently, vegans and vegetarians tend to be highly deficient. Soils are another problem, as eastern states like Georgia and western ones like Washington are naturally deficient compared with the central US.
China, New Zealand, and Scandinavia also have naturally low-selenium soils, and if you’re a citizen of those countries, then you too may be deficient. Severe selenium deficiencies aren’t common, but moderate deficiencies are plaguing vast swathes of the world’s population.
Why does this matter? Simply because selenium has been demonstrated again and again to be excellent for acne.
The evidence is overwhelming
STUDY ONE – in 1990, scientists gathered 37 men with inflammatory acne, aged between 18 and 25. Compared to 37 men with clear skin, the acne patients had dramatically lower selenium levels.
Their blood and plasma levels were 1.59 and 1.22 respectively, whereas the healthy men stood at 1.80 and 1.36. Women were nearly identical, with 1.50 and 1.10 for the acne crew, and 1.93/1.34 for the others.
STUDY TWO – in 1984, scientists gathered 29 acne patients and fed them 0.2mg of selenium and 10mg of vitamin E twice daily for 6-12 weeks. The results were excellent, with acne falling in nearly all patients.
STUDY THREE – scientists recruited 56 acne patients of both sexes, attending the Al Hussein Teaching Hospital in Iraq. They each took a selenium supplement for 8 weeks, and at every 2 week check up, the quantity of inflammatory acne dropped further and further. According to the scientists: ““the results obtained in this study showed the beneficial effects of using… selenium to patients with acne vulgaris”.
It’s clear that selenium is phenomenal for your skin. Selenium is also one of the best reviewed acne nutrients on the internet, almost matching the famous zinc and vitamin A.
Selenium feeds your antioxidant production
Selenium’s main acne power is dramatically increasing your antioxidant levels. Antioxidants are vital for your skin’s glow, but they’re also critical for preventing blocked pores. The oil on your face, AKA sebum, can clog your pores by itself, but the real mayhem begins when it oxidises.
Next – the 6 best vitamins and minerals for naturally clear skin
Every day, your face is bombarded by air pollution, sunlight, toxic chemicals in cosmetics, and also free radicals from within your body. Upon contact, these villains trigger a chain reaction with squalene (which makes up 12% of sebum) to create squalene peroxide.
Compared to plain old sebum, this substance is twice as effective at clogging skin pores. Squalene peroxide triggers further sebum production, and even inflames your skin directly. Therefore, it’s critical to prevent your skin’s oil from oxidising, and unsurprisingly, the best defensive shield is the humble antioxidant, which are built into sebum as your sebaceous glands manufacture it.
The first strategy is simply eating more dietary antioxidants, via fruits, vegetables, herbs and spices. The second strategy is the more secret one – helping your body to manufacture its own antioxidants.
It’s in that second strategy that selenium works wonders. Selenium is one of the main ingredients of glutathione, your body’s most abundant indigenous antioxidant.
For starters, both study 2 and study 3 analysed glutathione in addition to pimples, and over the course of the 6/8 week experiments, levels slowly rose and rose. That’s excellent news, because in the medical world, glutathione is commonly dubbed the “master antioxidant”.
Study 3 also measured malondialdehyde (m) and interleukin-8 (IL-8), two classic biomarkers of oxidative stress which usually fall as antioxidants increase.
Why bread and pasta are a massive cause of acne
Sure enough, M and Il-8 fell significantly, correlating closely with the glutathione increase caused by selenium.
Countless studies have found that selenium improves your antioxidant status better than almost any other nutrient. Glutathione is actually a family of 8 enzymes, and selenium is an ingredient and co-factor of four – GPx1, GPx2, GPx3 and GPx4. GPx6 is actually a selenoprotein, making selenium utterly critical.
Alongside controlling thyroid hormones, making antioxidants is selenium’s main job in the human body. Consequently, selenium is terrific at preventing clogged pores through the secret path we discussed earlier.
However, glutathione also tackles many free radical subtypes across the whole body. By hovering them up and preventing their oxidising chain reactions, selenium can also lower the general inflammation of your acne.
Note that in studies, acne patients have consistently lower glutathione levels than average.
Glutathione can even regenerate previously used antioxidants, including vitamin E, the main antioxidant your sebaceous glands build into oil. When vitamin E has been “used up” – it has donated its electron to a free radical and is no longer an antioxidant – glutathione can restore it.
7 acne-clearing topical treatments which are 100% natural
Thioredoxin reductase, another antioxidant selenium helps to create, can also restore vitamin E, and even vitamin C. Glutathione itself also helps to create smaller antioxidants like superoxide dismutase. Basically alongside fruits and vegetables, getting enough selenium is one of the unskippable antioxidant strategies.
Selenium – an acne clearing powerhouse
The benefits doesn’t end there, as selenium has several other useful acne powers::
Heavy metal protection – mercury and arsenic are both dangerous toxins that unfortunately, nearly all of us are exposed to. Mercury hides in silver fillings and now contaminates most seafood, while arsenic lingers in soils and gets sucked up the roots of vegetables. Both can exacerbate acne via insulin resistance and spiralling inflammation.
Arsenic is particularly evil; it can dramatically rev up production of keratin, the protein that glues dead skin cells together into pore-clogging clumps. Mercury, meanwhile, specialises in high insulin levels, the worst hormone for oily skin. Good news then – selenium binds to both mercury and arsenic, allowing your body to detoxify them before this chaos kicks off.
You can never avoid 100% of heavy metals, and therefore, selenium is a great way to defend yourself. We covered the best mercury-dodging strategies in my eBook Annihilate Your Acne.
Stronger skin – selenium has protected the skin against UV radiation in two studies. In 1983, some hairless (an advantage for sun studies) female mice were fed selenium, and apparently, it was clear early on that their UV light resistance significantly outstripped the placebo mice. Their inflammation and pigmentation were much lower.
In 1985, the same team found that selenium massively reduced the amount of tumour formation in UV exposed mice. The explanation? It’s probably the antioxidants again, but with a specialised ability to reduce the specific free radicals triggered by UV (like 8-OHdG). If true, then this would be excellent for acne, lowering inflammation and sebum oxidation.
Read Annihilate Your Acne – get the diet that could transform your skin!
A second benefit of selenium sun-protecting powers would be increasing vitamin D (an unskippable acne nutrient), by allowing more time in the sun without damage.
Lowered inflammation – selenium can reduce the activity of NF-KappaB, a master messenger controlling the production of many smaller inflammatory chemicals behind acne. Less NF-KappaB equals less TNF-a, IL-6, IL8, IL-1beta, and other cytokines running rampant around the body. Selenium is therefore perfect for red and inflamed acne.
Greater zinc potency – selenium helps to shuttle this acne nutrient into the cells where it carries out its work. You can therefore enjoy even more of zinc’s immune system-constraining powers.
By restoring vitamin E and C, you’ll also acquire their bonus acne benefits like lowered stress for vitamin C. Selenium can also improve eczema and psoriasis, a red, flaky, itchy skin condition with 50% similar causes to acne.
So is selenium a useful for clearing acne?
The answer is a resounding yes. All the evidence points towards selenium being one of the best acne nutrients ever. Zinc is more famous, but selenium is equally useful. For some, it may be superior, particularly if you’re exposed to great plumes of air pollution or are a light skinned person living in a sunny climate like Texas. Smokers will particularly benefit, because tobacco is a gigantic source of free radicals.
Disliking fruits and vegetables is another factor. Basically, the poorer your overall antioxidant status, the greater acne benefits you’ll notice from selenium.
That said, selenium is terrific for almost all acne patients – getting more antioxidants is important for everyone.
But are you actually deficient?
That’s the million dollar question. Firstly, being a vegan or vegetarian is a classic risk factor, but so is eating relatively few animal foods.
Avoiding eggs and fish, two excellent sources, makes deficiency particularly likely. In fact, you may have heard that all animal foods are disastrous for acne, that they increase your bodily acid load or sit around and rot in your stomach for weeks.
The truth is that high quality meats, fish, and eggs are amazing foods for acne. Selenium is one of many reasons why. China, New Zealand, parts of the UK and Scandinavia all have low selenium soils, as do Tibet, parts of Siberia, Korea and Japan. Central US states like North or South Dakota are mostly safe havens, because their soils are famously selenium rich. However, you still have to eat the foods where the mineral actually accumulates.
Being a heavy drinker is a negative, since alcohol depletes selenium supplies. Symptoms of a moderate selenium deficiency include brain fog, weak skin and hair, poor fertility, hypothyroidism, and discoloured fingernails.
The greatest selenium supplement
If that sounds familiar, then your next step is simple – snack on two Brazil nuts per day. The Brazil nut is easily the greatest source of selenium in the known world. Just two nuts contains the entire recommended daily allowance (RDA), which is 7 micrograms (mcg) according to the World Health organisation.
A 100 gram cup contains over 3000% of the RDA. One study took 59 New Zealanders and fed them 2 Brazil nuts daily. Their bloodstream selenium rose by 64.2% in just 8 weeks, while a placebo group enjoyed no increases.
It’s proven then – a Brazil nut matches any dedicated pill on the market.
They’re also rich in vitamin E, not to mention magnesium. One study found that 20-50 grams of Brazil nuts lowered inflammation substantially, and quickly. Their l-arginine supplies are plentiful, the amino acid which creates nitric oxide, a vasodilating gas which is important for wound (and therefore acne) healing. A single isolated mineral will succeed, but Brazil nuts provide bonus benefits.
Get the eBook – learn why eating fish can improve acne by 42%
One product that ticks all the boxes is this 16 once bag of Terrasoul Superfoods Raw Brazil Nuts (amazon link). They’re organic, and therefore free from any pesticides. Additionally, many foreign nuts are contaminated with mycotoxins, created by black mould – Brazil nuts are especially vulnerable. While it’s not guaranteed, superior production techniques give organic products a higher chance of freshness. This bulk pack is also fairly cheap – eat one per day and you’ll still hit the RDA, and the packet will last for ages.
If you want a bottle of chemical-free capsules instead, and a particularly well-absorbed one, then this Pure Encapsulations Selenium (amazon link) is unbeatable.
Don’t overdose!
One strategy I don’t recommend, however, is gigantic doses. Unlike vitamin C or vitamin E, where megadoses are terrific for acne, selenium won’t provide any extra benefits past 300mcg per day. Megadosing vitamin E is different, flooding your skin with healing antioxidants, but with glutathione, there’s hard limits on how much your body can synthesise.
Secondly, selenium is easy to overdose on. Certain woodland plants actually use selenium as a poison against predators. Farmers in the central USA take special care to shepherd their livestock away from astragulus bisulcatus, a selenium-rich plant which is notorious for making sheep sick.
400mcg per day is considered to be an overdose and the telltale symptoms include…
- Baldness.
- Skin discolouration.
- Weak hair, nails, and skin.
- Garlic-flavoured breath (which may be useful in Transylvania).
- Tooth decay.
- Mental fatigue and listlessness.
Avoiding this nightmare is vital for acne as well, because one side effect of selenium toxicity is insulin resistance. Several studies on diabetics have noticed higher bloodstream selenium levels than average. Sky-high selenium can also disrupt your collagen formation and prevent old acne from healing – that’s why weak skin is a symptom.
Therefore, exceeding five Brazil nuts per day is a poor idea, and if you eat any Brazil nuts, then I’d advice against additional selenium supplementation.
Small amounts in multivitamins are fine, but that’s it. What’s more, some nuts have dodgy fat profiles for acne. You can eat ten Brazil nuts in one day, but don’t make it a regular occurrence.
Finally, if you don’t actually enjoy Brazil nuts, then other food sources are plentiful. The RDA for selenium is 60-70mcg for both men and women over 14, with pregnant and breastfeeding women requiring slightly more. 200mcg is superior for really maximising the benefits. Going further won’t make much difference.
Zinc – the number one mineral for clear skin (reduces acne by 49.8%)
By eating meat regularly, boiled eggs for breakfast each day, and throwing in some salmon twice a week, you’ll easily get enough selenium to make a huge difference. Organ meat like kidneys are also full of selenium, as are crimini mushrooms, sunflower seeds and oysters.
The glorious truth is that fixing your selenium levels is extremely easy. It hardly requires any effort once you’ve got the knowledge.
Conclusion
It’s possible that your selenium levels are perfect already. Deficiency isn’t as common as with magnesium and its epidemic of sleep deprivation and restless legs, but if you are selenium deficient, then it’s one of the ultimate minerals for boosting antioxidants, and hence clearing acne.
Be aware that results don’t come instantly. Both acne studies found that selenium took at least four weeks to kickstart the biggest reductions.
Nevertheless, you should notice a visible difference in two weeks, and thereafter, the skinprovements will only accelerate.
NEXT: discover the root causes of acne and banish your pimples forever
Thanks for reading!
Really awesome post man. There’s so much information here. Really awesome. Thank you.
Could mild allergies cause acne? I just found out I’m mildly allergic to eggs, so if it’s contributing to breakouts I want to find another suitable breakfast item
Definitively, because they trigger an inflammatory response.