China: Will Nano Selenium Help Prevent Avian Pandemic?

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Epidemics

Health

The bird flu, or avian influenza, is spreading in Europe. The hype and hysteria in the media are quite unprecedented. We are treated to images of dead Swans being stuffed into plastic bags by Vets in protective clothing. The stage seems set for the inevitable disaster. But is the situation really that grave?

We are told that there is no remedy, except for Tamiflu and similar drugs, which have however been found to be ineffective. Vaccines for poultry exist and are widely used. A human vaccine however is impossible to make for now. The virus must mutate to infect humans directly before the process of making a vaccine can even begin, and then it will be several months before vaccines are ready for use.

I have written previously about the hype and warned of exaggerating. But the press keeps beating the issue. "The virus is coming", is the message, and we have little or no defense, we're told.

No mention is made of the fact that illness needs a convergence of both external and internal factors to develop. External factors are environmental, including viral, challenges. Internal factors are summed up in what alternative medicine calls the terrain, the biological substrate of the host, which in our case are wild birds as well as fowl raised for production of meat and eggs.

A healthy rooster in Minas, Brazil Photo credit: Sepp

Nutrition is important in forming the terrain and preventing illness

There are important nutrients, especially the mineral selenium, which determine the immune response of organisms to invading microbes and viral particles. Selenium has been identified as one of the factors in AIDS etiology by geo-epidemiologist Harold Foster. The mineral, or rather a lack of it, is also implicated in the appearance of avian influenza, says Qu Shaozhong in a comment posted to an earlier article on this site.

Selenium supplementation for fowl is recommended where the feed grains themselves do not contain a sufficient amount of this important mineral. A novel form of delivery - nano selenium - decreases the toxicity the mineral shows at high doses by a factor of 7.

The discussion of Qu Shaozhong, somewhat edited for better readability, is highly interesting as it shows a way of increasing resistance to the avian influenza virus in the affected bird populations as well as in humans by such simple means as the nutritional supplementation of selenium.

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Avian influenza’s “internal factor" of selenium deficiency and an epidemic prevention strategy of "treating the cause”

Qu Yuan Qu Lai Qu Shaozhong

The spread of avian influenza all over the world can not be explained by external factors alone. According to dialectics, the internal factor is the basis and the external is the condition. The external factor can only act through the internal factor. What is the internal factor of avian influenza? Study shows that the internal factor of avian influenza is the consumption of selenium —the only element that has direct relation with viruses in the body of birds - in the peak period (autumn, winter and spring) of egg laying, which causes body imbalance and susceptibility to virus attack.

Let us examine the fact that the selenium composition in eggs is very high, with goose egg containing 336 mg/kg, duck egg 307 mg/kg, all reaching the selenium rich standard (280 mg/kg). The selenium composition of hen’s egg is 223 mg/kg, approaching selenium rich standard, and exceeding by far the selenium content of flour (47 mg/kg), rice (70 mg/kg) and beef (43 mg/kg). It can be said that birds are providing high selenium nurture to humans. However, the sources of selenium nurture for birds are not so good.

Taking chicken as an example, a hen can lay eggs 15-18 kg, and the egg/forage ratio should be between 2.6 and 2.8:1. If the selenium composition of egg can reach 233mg/kg, the selenium composition of forage should be 83mk/kg. (not including that consumed by chickens in their life and activity). But in some countries and regions deficient in selenium, it is difficult to reach this level (because the selenium in the soil is provided to animals through plants, and if soil is lacking selenium, feed grains are of course lacking selenium).

When income falls short of expenditure, e.g. high production of egg and low intake of selenium, the bird organism will lose its balance. As selenium is an important element needed by immune system, extreme lack of selenium will increase the possibility of being infected with avian influenza. This can be analyzed from macroscopic and microscopic view.

1. As seen from macroscopic view, the spread of avian influenza over the world is related to selenium deficiency

Fact: over 40 countries and regions are lacking selenium, including Europe, the USA, Canada, Asia and Southeast Asia. China is seriously deficient in selenium.

On the selenium distribution map of China, one can see a large selenium deficiency band running from the Northeast to the Southwest composed of 45 parts of provinces and municipalities. In addition, other areas are also short of selenium. There is only one third of the territory of our country where the soil reaches the normal critical value of 0.1mg/kg published internationally in terms of selenium composition and the remaining two thirds are selenium deficient area. The area with serious lack of selenium, (≤0.02mg/kg) accounts for 29% .

As bird forage is inexpensive, the materials of forage are usually taken from local resources, and the selenium in the food chain determines the selenium intake of local birds. Serious lack of selenium and high production of egg make hens lose their internal balance and cause a serious decline of resistance. The break-out and spread of avian influenza have coincides with these areas, and each time, this can be confirmed on the selenium distribution map of china. (See Fig. 1)

Figure 1: Avian influenza epidemic situation and selenium distribution map in China

Ass seen from the history of avian influenza, it broke out in Italy, a selenium deficiency country in Europe, followed by Spain, Russia and Holland, which are also lacking selenium. The earliest, largest and most widespread five incidences of avian influenza all broke out in selenium deficiency areas, and the areas where we see avian influenza in 2005 are also short of selenium (See Fig 2).

Figure 2: Avian influenza and selenium distribution in Europe

The United States of America and Canada have also conducted surveys on the selenium contents of their soil, and it can be seen from the North America selenium distribution map that the epidemic situation of avian influenza in 2005 also corresponds to the areas of selenium deficiency (see Fig.3). As reported, Southeast Asia is also recognized as a selenium deficiency area. However, its selenium distribution map can not be drawn here because detailed selenium composition surveys are not available.

Figure 3: North America - avian influenza and selenium distribution

It happens that there was a similar case of large scale occurrence of disease caused to humans by lack of selenium. This was keshan disease, an endemic disease caused by the lack of selenium in the early days of the foundation of our country. Its was manifested as cough, oppressed feeling in chest, difficult breathing, generalized hydrops (edema), pulmonary edema, heart failure and finally led to death. Researchers found Coxsackie’s virus in the heart of the dead, and the question was, why had this normally benign virus turned malign? Further research showed that it was because of selenium deficiency.

Premier (Zhou EnLai) made a prompt decision to supplement selenium for 9,000,000 people in 310 areas of over 10 provinces, and the disease was controlled. This was a miracle of worldwide import. When avian influenza viruses attack once again, we should pay attention to the macroscopic relation between the disease and selenium deficiency.

2. The relation between selenium and avian influenza viruses as seen from a microscopic view

As seen from a microscopic view, avian influenza virus is bacilliform or spherical in shape. The spherical virus has a diameter of 80-120nm and is covered by cyst membranes. The hemagglutinin of the outer cyst membrane is labeled with “H”, and according to different protein antigens, is marked with “H1-H5”, while its neuramidinase is labeled with “N”, or “NB1-N9”. The combination H5N1 denotes a highly pathogenic virus. What is the relationship between virus and selenium? It can be described directly and indirectly.

2.1 Direct relation between selenium and virus

The delicate relation between selenium and virus is determined by the characteristics of selenium. Selenium is either a beneficial element essential to the reproduction of living beings or a harmful element with toxicity, and the threshold between the two is very narrow.

The highest concentration of selenium is found in the semen and ovum of animals. Each sperm contains selenium and each time hundreds of millions of sperms are discharged. In the period of peak sexual activity, in the age between 20 to 40 for humans, and in the peak egg production period for birds, the need for selenium is the highest, leading to serious shortage of selenium in the body. This is determined in genetic breeding instructions. As the main tas