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Dietary Supplementation with Selenium and CoQ 10 Lowered Cardiovascular

Mortality in an Elderly Swedish Population

Nutrients 2021 Apr 17;13(4):1344. Dietary Supplementation with Selenium and Coenzyme Q 10 Prevents Increase in Plasma D-Dimer While Lowering Cardiovascular Mortality in an Elderly Swedish Population Urban Alehagen 1, Jan Aaseth 2, Tomas L Lindahl 3, Anders Larsson 4, Jan Alexander 5 Affiliations

  • 1 Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Health, Medicine and Caring Sciences, Linköping University, SE-581 85 Linköping, Sweden.

  • 2 Research Department, Innlandet Hospital Trust, N-2381 Brumunddal, Norway.

  • 3 Division of Clinical Chemistry and Pharmacology, Department of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences, Linköping University, SE-581 85 Linköping, Sweden.

  • 4 Department of Medical Sciences, Uppsala University, SE-751 85 Uppsala, Sweden.

  • 5 Norwegian Institute of Public Health, N-0403 Oslo, Norway.

Abstract A low intake of selenium is associated with increased cardiovascular mortality. This could be reduced by supplementation with selenium and coenzyme Q10. D-dimer, a fragment of fibrin mirroring fibrinolysis, is a biomarker of thromboembolism, increased inflammation, endothelial dysfunction and is associated with cardiovascular mortality in ischemic heart disease. The objective was to examine the impact of selenium and coenzyme Q10 on the level of D-dimer, and its relationship to cardiovascular mortality. D-dimer was measured in 213 individuals at the start and after 48 months of a randomised double-blind placebo-controlled trial with selenium yeast (200 µg/day) and coenzyme Q10 (200 mg/day) (n = 106) or placebo (n = 107). The follow-up time was 4.9 years. All included individuals were low in selenium (mean 67 μg/L, SD 16.8). The differences in D-dimer concentration were evaluated by the use of T-tests, repeated measures of variance and ANCOVA analyses. At the end, a significantly lower D-dimer concentration was observed in the active treatment group in comparison with those on placebo (p = 0.006). Although D-dimer values at baseline were weakly associated with high-sensitive CRP, while being more strongly associated with soluble tumour necrosis factor receptor 1 and sP-selectin, controlling for these in the analysis there was an independent effect on D-dimer. In participants with a D-dimer level above median at baseline, the supplementation resulted in significantly lower cardiovascular mortality compared to those on placebo (p = 0.014). All results were validated with a persisting significant difference between the two groups. Therefore, supplementation with selenium and coenzyme Q10 in a group of elderly low in selenium and coenzyme Q10 prevented an increase in D-dimer and reduced the risk of cardiovascular mortality in comparison with the placebo group. The obtained results also illustrate important associations between inflammation, endothelial function and cardiovascular risk. Keywords: D-dimer; cardiovascular mortality; coenzyme Q10; elderly; intervention; selenium.

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