Improving the selenium supply of vegans and omnivores with Brazil nut butter compared to a dietary supplement in a randomized controlled trial.

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial looks at Copper (Supplement).

Due to the lower selenium content in plant-based compared to animal-based foods, many vegans do not reach the recommended selenium intake in Europe.

The only plant-based food with high selenium content is the Brazil nut, even though there is also a high variability.

Why It Was Studied

Clinical trials registration number: NCT05814874, April 18 2023.

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are adults and middle-aged adults, both men and women.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized and placebo-controlled study.

The participants were allocated by chance, so the Copper (Supplement) group and the comparison group should start out alike.

A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the Copper (Supplement) group a baseline to be compared against.

Serum selenium concentrations, glutathione peroxidase 3 (GPX3), and selenoprotein P (SELENOP) were measured at baseline and after intervention.

Additionally, dietary selenium intake was estimated using a five-day dietary protocol.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Selenium, Bertholletia, Dietary Supplements, Vegans, Diet, Vegan, Glutathione Peroxidase and Nuts.

The authors tagged it with the keywords Brazil nut, Selenium status, Selenium supplement and Veganism.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and placebo-controlled study of Copper (Supplement).

Its findings take up roughly 4 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2025 (European journal of nutrition), a journal based in Germany.

More context: the Copper (Supplement) compound page, all human trials.