Beware of the risk of eating too many nuts!!

Brazil nuts: They are a good source of selenium which plays an important role in reproduction, thyroid function and DNA production. The problem is that you can easily overdose selenium if you eat what many would consider to be a small amount of nuts.

The National Institutes of Health or NIH’s selenium factsheet for consumers’, states that Brazil nut contains 68 to 91 micrograms of selenium per nut. One nut alone is more than enough to satisfy the recommended daily allowance of 55 micrograms or 0.0000019 ounces of selenium per day for adults. And, you should eat only about 4 to 5 nuts per day if you want to stay within what the Linus Pauling Institute describes as the tolerable upper intake level or ul for selenium which is 400 micrograms per day for adults.

Selenium poisoning or Seal Enosis can occur if you eat too many Brazil nuts over a long period of time. How much is too much?

The Merck Manual states that at high doses greater than 900 micrograms per day. Selenium causes toxicity. This amount is roughly equal to eating 10 to 14 Brazil nuts per day. The NIH selenium FAQ sheet for consumers’ lists skin rashes and loss of hair or nails as some of the symptoms of selenium overdose. And, it notes that extremely high intakes of selenium can cause severe problems including difficulty breathing tremors, kidney failure, heart attacks and heart failure.