Association Between Dietary Selenium Intake and the Prevalence of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Objective: The aim was to examine the association between dietary selenium intake and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in a large group of middle-aged and elderly Chinese persons.

Method: The data included in this analysis were from a population-based study, the Xiangya Hospital Health Management Center Study. NAFLD was diagnosed by (1) imaging or histological evidence of hepatic steatosis; (2) absence of specific etiologies of NAFLD; and (3) no heavy consumption of alcohol. Dietary selenium intake was assessed using a validated semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire. The association between dietary selenium intake and the prevalence of NAFLD was evaluated using logistic and spline regression in a cross-sectional study of 5436 subjects.

Results: The prevalence of NAFLD was 36.8%. Compared with the lowest quintile, the energy-adjusted odds ratios for NAFLD were 1.27 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.07–1.52), 1.30 (95% CI, 1.09–1.55), and 1.58 (95% CI, 1.33–1.89) for the third, fourth, and fifth quintiles of selenium intake, respectively, and there was a positive dose–response relationship (r = 0.88, p for trend = 0.008). Similar results were observed for men and women separately. The findings were not materially altered by adjustment for potential confounders (i.e., age, gender, body mass index, smoking status, diabetes, hypertension, activity level, nutritional supplements, energy intake, fat intake, fiber intake, cholesterol and saturated fatty acid intake).

Conclusions: In this middle-aged and elderly population, subjects with higher dietary selenium intake, even below the recommended nutrient intake in China, had higher prevalence of NAFLD in a dose–response relationship manner.

Keywords:

• Selenium
• fatty liver
• dietary
• cross-sectional study
• dose–response

Acknowledgements

The authors appreciate the support of Orthopedics Research Institute of Xiangya Hospital.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests.

Availability of data and material

Data can be requested from the corresponding author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81672225, 81601941, 81501923, 81772413, 81702207, 81702206); the Postdoctoral Science Foundation of Central South University (182130); the Young Investigator Grant of Xiangya Hospital, Central South University (2016Q03, 2016Q06); the Xiangya Clinical Big Data System Construction Project of Central South University (45); the Clinical Scientific Research Foundation of Xiangya Hospital, Central South University (2015L03); and the Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province (2017JJ3491, 2017JJ3492).