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Bioavailability to Rats of Selenium in Various Tuna and Wheat Products^{1 ,2}

Departments of Agricultural Chemistry and Foods and Nutrition, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331

Bioavailability of selenium (Se) in tuna and wheat at various stages of processing was studied in rats. The protein source of the rat diets was torula yeast with Se supplied by either raw, precooked or canned tuna, or whole wheat flour, whole wheat bread or bran. Sodium selenite was used as the standard. Each Se source was fed at three levels: 0.05, 0.10 and 0.15 ppm. By using increase in glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) activity in liver, kidney and whole blood as an indicator of bioavailability, no differences were found among the three tuna products or among the three wheat products tested. However, significantly lower GSH-Px activity was found in the combined tuna groups as compared to the combined wheat groups, suggesting that selenium in wheat was more available than that in tuna. There was a significant increase in the liver Se content of rats fed all levels of Se in canned tuna and in kidney, blood and muscle Se of rats fed 0.10 and 0.15 ppm Se in canned tuna in comparison to the tissue Se content in rats fed these same levels of Se in raw or precooked tuna. Since this did not correspond with an increase in GSH-Px activity it was concluded that it did not represent increased bioavailability of canned tuna. Thus, food processing does not appear to affect Se availability, but Se appears to be more available in wheat than tuna.

KEY WORDS: • selenium • glutathione peroxidase • selenite • tuna • wheat • bioavailability • rats

¹ Published with the approval of the Oregon State Agricultural Experiment Station as technical paper No. 6439. This work was supported by grant number PFR-7919119 from the human nutrition program of the National Science Foundation.

² Preliminary reports presented at 65th and 66th annual meetings of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, Atlanta, GA and New Orleans, LA. Alexander, A. R., Whanger, P. D. & Miller, L. T. (1981) The effect of processing on the bioavailability of selenium in food. Fed. Proc. 40: 877; and Alexander, A. R., Whanger, P. D., Leklem, J. E. & Miller, L. T. (1982) The effect of food processing on the bioavailability of selenium in tuna and wheat: human and rat studies. Fed. Proc. 41: 786. The data are from a thesis submitted by the senior author to the Graduate School, Oregon State University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Ph.D. degree.

³ Present address: Department of Biochemistry and Nutrition, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061.

Manuscript received 2 July 1982.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				J. Ortuno, G. Ros, M.J. Periago, C. Martinez, and G. Lopez Biodisponibilidad del selenio y metodos de evaluacion/Selenium bioavailability and methods of evaluation Food Science and Technology International, January 1, 1996; 2(3): 135 - 150. [PDF]