Meanings
- uncountableA congestive cardiomyopathy caused by a combination of dietary deficiency of selenium and the presence of a mutated strain of coxsackievirus.
Keshan disease is a degenerative disease, particularly affecting the heart, that is prevented by supplementation of the diet with a selenium salt. The name comes from an episode in 1935 in which 57 out of 286 inhabitants of a village in Keshan County of Heilongjiang Province died of the disease.
1994, John M. C. Gutteridge, Barry Halliwell, “Antioxidant vitamins and nutrients”, in Antioxidants in Nutrition, Health, and Disease, Oxford; New York; Tokyo: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 74
Origin
Named after Keshan (克山 (Kèshān)) County of Heilongjiang province, Northeast China, where symptoms were first noted.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
Keshan disease. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Keshan%20disease
“Keshan disease.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Keshan%20disease. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Keshan disease,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Keshan%20disease.
Source: Keshan disease on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.