Many people enjoy the delicate, briny flavor of oysters. They are quite nutritious, containing high-quality protein, iron, zinc, vitamin B-12 and copper -- they also have quite a bit of selenium, a mineral necessary for good health. Include oysters in your diet to increase your selenium intake, although consult your physician before eating oysters to treat any medical condition.
Selenium in Oysters
A 3-oz. serving of oysters cooked under dry heat contains 65.9 mcg of selenium. As a rule, men and women both require 55 mcg per day, so eating just one serving of oysters satisfies your entire daily need of this mineral. If you are pregnant, you need a bit more: 60 mcg of selenium. You may consume oysters when pregnant as they are a low mercury seafood, but only eat fully cooked oysters during this time and limit yourself to 12 oz. per week.
Boosting Selenium Intake
While 3 oz. of oysters more than meets your daily selenium requirements, if you consume a smaller portion and wish to boost your selenium intake, consider recipes that incorporate Brazil nuts, sunflower seeds, bacon or crimini mushrooms. These foods are high in selenium. One oz. of Brazil nuts contains 543.5 mcg of selenium, and 1 cup of sliced crimini mushrooms has 18.7 mcg.
Fertility Benefits
The selenium in oysters is good for your thyroid and provides antioxidant protections, but it plays a critical role in fertility -- possibly because of those antioxidants, according to a study published in the December 2010 issue of "Human Fertility." An additional study available in the January 2011 edition of the "International Journal of General Medicine" correlates selenium supplementation -- along with vitamin E -- with improvements to sperm motility, which improves your chance of conception. Oysters also contain zinc, another mineral that positively influences fertility for both men and women.
Considerations
While rare, oysters may trigger an excess of selenium in your body that causes a condition known as selenosis. You have to consume a high quantity of oysters and other selenium-rich foods over a long period of time to contract selenosis. The tolerable upper intake level for selenium set by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences stands at 400 mcg per day for adults. Symptoms include hair loss, lethargy, nerve damage and gastrointestinal problems.
Be wary about how you eat oysters and where they come from. Oysters harvested from warm coastal waters, particularly during warmer months, are sometimes infected with a bacterium known as Vibrio vulnificus. While this bacteria is killed off in oysters that are fully cooked, if you eat raw oysters to boost your selenium intake, you risk an infection that may cause nausea, shock, gastrointestinal problems and skin lesions.
References
- USDA National Nutrient Database: Mollusks, Oyster, Eastern, Farmed, Cooked, Dry Heat
- MedlinePlus; Selenium in Diet; March 2009
- University of Maryland Medical Center; Selenium; May 2009
- American Pregnancy Association; Mercury Levels in Fish; March 2011
- USDA National Nutrient Database: Nuts, Brazilnuts, Dried, Unblanched
- USDA National Nutrient Database: Mushrooms, Brown, Italian, or Crimini, Raw
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