Selenium Status in Patients with Chronic Liver Disease: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

• Published in: Nutrients Vol. 14; no. 5; p. 952
• Main Authors: Lin, Yaduan, He, Fanchen, Lian, Shaoyan, Xie, Binbin, Liu, Ting, He, Jiang, Liu, Chaoqun
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 23.02.2022; MDPI
• Subjects: Antioxidants; Chronic illnesses; chronic liver disease; Cirrhosis; Clinical trials; Confidence intervals; Estimates; Fatty liver; fatty liver diseases; Hepatitis; Heterogeneity; Humans; Liver; Liver cancer; Liver cirrhosis; Liver Diseases; Meta-analysis; Observational Studies as Topic; Population control; Prospective Studies; Review; Risk assessment; Selenium; Statistical analysis; Systematic review; selenium; meta-analysis; chronic liver disease; liver cancer; fatty liver diseases; hepatitis; cirrhosis; selenium intake
• ISSN: 2072-6643; 2072-6643
• DOI: 10.3390/nu14050952

The potential role of selenium in preventing chronic liver diseases remains controversial. This meta-analysis aimed to summarize the available evidence from observational studies and intervention trials that had evaluated the associations between body selenium status and chronic liver diseases. We comprehensively searched MEDLINE, Embase, Web of Science, and Cochrane Library from inception to April 2021. The study protocol was registered at PROSPERO (CRD42020210144). Relative risks (RR) for the highest versus the lowest level of selenium and standard mean differences (SMD) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were pooled using random-effects models. Heterogeneity and publication bias were evaluated using the statistic and Egger's regression test, respectively. There were 50 studies with 9875 cases and 12975 population controls in the final analysis. Patients with hepatitis (SMD = -1.78, 95% CI: -2.22 to -1.34), liver cirrhosis (SMD = -2.06, 95% CI: -2.48 to -1.63), and liver cancer (SMD = -2.71, 95% CI: -3.31 to -2.11) had significantly lower selenium levels than controls, whereas there was no significant difference in patients with fatty liver diseases (SMD = 1.06, 95% CI: -1.78 to 3.89). Moreover, the meta-analysis showed that a higher selenium level was significantly associated with a 41% decrease in the incidence of significant advanced chronic liver diseases (RR = 0.59, 95% CI: 0.49 to 0.72). Our meta-analysis suggested that both body selenium status and selenium intake were negatively associated with hepatitis, cirrhosis, and liver cancer. However, the associations for fatty liver diseases were conflicting and need to be established in prospective trials.