Selenium is one of the so-called essential trace elements. This means that the body needs only very small amounts of it every day – but they are essential for life.
The importance of selenium for the organism has only crystallized in recent decades. At the beginning of the 20th century, the rare semimetal was still considered a toxin. Then, in the 1950s, U.S. scientists discovered that selenium is a component of many of the body’s own proteins. It is now known that numerous metabolic processes in various organs can only function properly with the help of selenium.