Research
Micronutrients & recovery
Selenium supplementation improves fertility in dairy cows, primarily by reducing embryonic mortality during the first month of pregnancy, with effects not replicated by vitamin E alone.
If you are managing livestock in selenium-deficient areas, standard antioxidant supplementation (like Vitamin E) is insufficient. Targeted selenium supplementation is required to significantly reduce early embryonic loss and improve overall fertility rates.
ModerateSupportsMEDIUM confidence
Selenium increases fertility in dairy cows... Meschy [42] reported a remarkable increase in fertility (92% vs. 45%) with selenium supplementation. Such a result was not found in cases where a supplement of vitamin E, or of another antioxidant, was given. The increase in fertility was attributed to a decrease in embryonic mortality during the first month of pregnancy.
Why this rating
The paper cites specific studies (Meschy) showing large effect sizes, but the overall text is a review of animal and human data with varying quality.
Source
Selenium in the Environment, Metabolism and Involvement in Body Functions
Youcef Mehdi et al. · Molecules · 2013
DOI 10.3390/molecules18033292
narrative_reviewCited 733×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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