The Study
Selenium supplementation and placebo are equally effective in improving quality of life in patients with hypothyroidism
This study is like a fair test where half the people got selenium pills and half got sugar pills, and no one knew which was which. After a year, both groups felt just as good — so we can say selenium didn’t make people feel better. But it did lower one blood marker, which doesn’t mean anything for how people actually feel.
Analysis score
Maximum 90 for a randomized controlled trial.
Where the score came from
People with an overactive immune system attacking their thyroid (autoimmune hypothyroidism) took either a selenium pill or a sugar pill for a year, while still taking their thyroid hormone medicine.
Where does this study sit?
Reviews of RCTs (Meta-analyses)
Max 100Randomized Trials
Max 90Reviews of Cohort Studies
Max 85Cohort Studies
Max 72Reviews of Case-Control Studies
Max 63Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional & Case Series
Max 50Expert Opinion
Max 579 / 100
Quality score
Participants are randomly assigned to treatment or control groups, minimizing bias. The gold standard for testing whether an intervention causes an effect.
Key takeaways
Summary
Based on the study abstract and findings.
- 1Even though selenium lowered antibodies, it didn’t make people feel better or change their medicine needs — so the antibody drop didn’t matter for how they felt.
- 2Selenium lowered antibody levels by 19%, but both groups felt just as good — no difference in energy, mood, or symptoms.
- 3Neither group needed less thyroid medicine.
Score breakdown, methodology, conflicts of interest, evidence analysis & raw study data
Publication
Journal
European Thyroid Journal
Year
2024
Authors
Camilla Bøgelund Larsen, K. Winther, P. Cramon, Å. Rasmussen, Ulla Feldt-Rasmussen, Nils Knudsen, J. Bjorner, L. Schomburg, K. Demircan, T. Chillon, Jeppe Gram, S. Hansen, F. Brandt, Birte Nygaard, T. Watt, Laszlo Hegedüs, S. Bonnema
Related Content
Claims (6)
Taking selenium supplements daily for a year does not lower the amount of levothyroxine that adults with autoimmune hypothyroidism need to take to manage their thyroid hormone levels.
Taking 200 micrograms of selenium daily for a year does not improve how people with autoimmune hypothyroidism feel on a standardized quality-of-life survey, even though their thyroid antibody levels decrease.
In people with autoimmune hypothyroidism taking levothyroxine, taking 200 micrograms of selenium daily for a year may lower levels of thyroid peroxidase antibodies by about 19% compared to a placebo, but it does not change the required dose of thyroid hormone or the balance between free triiodothyronine and free thyroxine.
Taking 200 micrograms of selenium daily for a year raises selenium levels in the blood of adults with autoimmune hypothyroidism who are on levothyroxine, but it does not change how efficiently the body converts thyroxine into triiodothyronine.
In adults with autoimmune hypothyroidism, quality of life improved over 12 months whether they took selenium or a placebo, suggesting the improvement was not due to selenium but possibly to other factors like expectation or natural changes in the condition.
Most cases of hypothyroidism occur because the immune system attacks the thyroid gland, and the thyroid naturally holds more selenium than most other tissues in the body.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making health decisions.