A question and answer worth sharing from two of our amazing contributors:
Q:
Is there any logic to the idea that low selenium could be involved in the etiology of SIDS, perhaps by low immunity in the infant making it susceptible to infections and effecting the diaphragm?
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1445-5994.1996.tb02939.x
A:
This is one of dozens of ideas on what impacts the risk of SIDS. The research on what causes SIDS has been going on for more than 40 years, and this is part of the problem. The continued research into the cause of SIDS is the primary reason that there is no interest in monitoring to prevent SIDS. There are probably many factors/problems/causes that lead to SIDS deaths, and it is probable that there is no one way of preventing all of these other than monitoring. Monitoring is the one method which will prevent most of the deaths, regardless of the cause.
The medical establishment is focused on finding the cause of SIDS, and they are funded for this effort. They justify their strategy in thinking that if the can find the cause, then they can find the cure. But, there is no one cause, so there can be no one cure. Even if they could find multiple causes, and screen all infants for the set of known causes, it would still be extremely unlikely that all these deaths could be prevented. In the end, most of these infants are dying from lack of oxygen, for multiple reasons: diaphragmatic failure, epileptic apnea, inner ear problems, brain stem problems, not following all of the Safe to Sleep guidelines, etc, etc, etc. If monitoring is found to prevent the deaths, then it puts most of these researcher out of business, or at least forces them to research something for which they might find a cure.
I will wager anyone at 100 to 1 odds that monitoring can prevent more deaths than selenium supplementation. Any takers?