3 Foods containing significant amounts of selenium include wheat germ, Brazil nuts, other nuts, oats, whole-wheat bread, bran, red swiss chard, brown rice, turnips, garlic, barley, and orange juice. However, even these foods won't give you an adequate intake if the soil they were grown in was poor in selenium. Unfortunately, most of us have no way of knowing what kind of soil our food was grown in, so supplements may be a good idea. The two general types of selenium supplements available to consumers are organic and inorganic. In chemistry, organic means a substance's chemical structure includes carbon.
Inorganic chemicals have no carbon atoms.
The inorganic form of selenium, selenite, is essentially selenium atoms bound to oxygen. However, other research on both animals and humans suggests that selenite supplements are almost as good as organic forms of selenium. Treatment with corticosteroids may induce selenium deficiency. In controlled trials of selenium, a typical dosage was 100 to 200 mcg daily, in the same ballpark as nutritional doses. Therapeutic Uses Impressive evidence indicates that supplemental selenium may help prevent cancer .