Home > Health Conditions > Schizophrenia > Antidepressants & Psychotropics > Lithium

Lithium

Related Topics:

• Abilify (aripiprazole) / Clozaril (clozapine) / Geodon®/Zeldox (ziprasidone) / Haldol (haloperidol) / Invega (paliperidone) / lithium / Risperdal (risperidone) / Saphris (asenapine) / Seroquel® (quetiapine) / Zyprexa® (olanzapine)

Where to purchase:

• Lithium supplements at Amazon.com

News & Research:

• Lithium May Lower Osteoporosis Risk in Bipolar Disorder - Medscape, 5/25/22 - "those with bipolar disorder treated with lithium showed a significantly reduced risk of osteoporosis compared with patients not receiving lithium (HRR, 0.62)" - See lithium supplements at Amazon.com.
• Lithium may decrease risk of developing dementia - Science Daily, 3/27/22 - "Lithium is a mood stabiliser usually prescribed for conditions such as bipolar affective disorder and depression ... Bipolar disorder and depression are considered to put people at increased risk of dementia ... After controlling for factors such as smoking, other medications, and other physical and mental illnesses, lithium use was associated with a lower risk of dementia, both for short and long-term users. However, since the overall number of patients receiving lithium was small and this was an observational study, larger clinical trials would be needed to establish lithium as a potential treatment for dementia"
• Lithium treats intellectual defects in mouse model of Bardet-Biedl Syndrome - Science Daily, 4/22/21 - "Intellectual disability is the most common type of neurodevelopmental disorder, but few drugs are available to treat it. The new study suggests that lithium may be an effective treatment for the learning and memory defects caused by BBS, and the researchers suggest that further studies should be performed to test the use of this FDA-approved drug" - See lithium supplements at Amazon.com but I doubt if the over-the-counter form will work.
• Lithium in drinking water linked with lower suicide rates - Science Daily, 7/27/20 - "geographical areas with relatively high levels or concentration of lithium in public drinking water had correspondingly lower suicide rates ... Lithium, sometimes referred to as the 'Magic Ion', is widely and effectively used as a medication for the treatment and prevention of manic and depressive episodes, stabilising mood and reducing the risk of suicide in people with mood disorders. Its anti-aggressive properties can help reduce impulsivity, aggression, violent criminal behaviour and chronic substance abuse ... Lithium is a naturally occurring element and is found in variable amounts in vegetables, grains, spices and drinking water ... Recent studies have also linked lithium to reduced incidence of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias. This raises the potential for its preventative use to combat the risk of dementia" - See lithium supplements at Amazon.com and iHerb.
• Can lithium halt progression of Alzheimer's disease? - Science Daily, 1.25/20 - "when given in a formulation that facilitates passage to the brain, lithium in doses up to 400 times lower than what is currently being prescribed for mood disorders is capable of both halting signs of advanced Alzheimer's pathology such as amyloid plaques and of recovering lost cognitive abilities ... While it is unlikely that any medication will revert the irreversible brain damage at the clinical stages of Alzheimer's it is very likely that a treatment with microdoses of encapsulated lithium should have tangible beneficial effects at early, preclinical stages of the disease"
• Lithium can reverse radiation damage after brain tumor treatment - Science Daily, 11/13/19 - "the memory capacity and learning capability of mice improve if lithium treatment is given after the irradiation of the brain. Mice that were irradiated early in life and then given lithium from adolescence until young adulthood performed just as well as mice who had not been given radiation ... From this, we conclude that lithium, given along the lines of this model, can help to heal the damage caused by radiotherapy, even long after it was caused ... We're only just beginning to understand lithium's effects on the brain's ability to repair itself"
• Fruit flies live longer with combination drug treatment - Science Daily, 9/30/19 - "lithium as a mood stabiliser, trametinib as a cancer treatment and rapamycin as an immune system regulator ... The three drugs in question act on different proteins of this network to slow the ageing process and delay the onset of age-related death ... Each drug individually extended lifespan by an average of 11%, while pairing two drugs extended lifespan by roughly 30%. When the three drugs were combined, the fruit flies lived 48% longer than flies in a control group that were not given the treatment ... Previous studies in fruit flies have achieved lifespan extensions of about 5-20%, so we found it was quite remarkable that this drug combination enabled them to live 48% longer ... Rapamycin has undesirable effects on fat metabolism, which can be similar to insulin resistance in people, but lithium appeared to cancel out this effect when the two drugs were given together" - See lithium supplements at Amazon.com.
• Lithium boosts muscle strength in mice with rare muscular dystrophy - Science Daily, 6/3/19 - "There are no medications available for people with limb girdle muscular dystrophy ... Using muscle from these mice, the researchers discovered that disease variants overactivate a protein that suppresses muscle growth. Moreover, inhibiting the protein -- called GSK3beta -- with lithium chloride improves mice's strength and muscle mass ... After a month of treatment, they improved to 75 percent of the normal mice. It's a big jump ... Lithium chloride was once sold as table salt but was taken off the shelves in 1949, when doctors realized that sprinkling it liberally on food can be deadly. But other forms of lithium such as lithium carbonate and lithium citrate are used to treat some psychiatric illnesses, so it's possible a safe form of lithium can be found to treat the rare muscular dystrophy ... I don't want people to go out and take lithium chloride right now ... We've shown that this protein is a promising therapeutic target, but more work needs to be done" - Yeah, bit it's like everything else, you never see the 'more studies'.  Is lithium going to hurt?  Maybe but some studies even claim it increases lifespan.
• Lithium chloride blunts brain damage linked to fetal alcohol syndrome - Science Daily, 12/5/17 - "giving the drug to newborn mice 15 minutes after "binge" alcohol consumption eliminated the hyperactivity and sleep deficits seen when rodents exposed to alcohol became adults. Moreover, the researchers report, lithium chloride-treated mice were much less likely to show the 25 percent drop in memory and cognitive test scores seen in untreated mice given the same amount of alcohol ... Among the study's key findings was that mice given lithium chloride after alcohol consumption and mice that never consumed alcohol had the same duration of undisrupted sleep of about 10 hours per day, while untreated mice given alcohol woke up as many as 50 times per hour. Sleep disturbances in animals and humans have long been linked to cognitive and emotional damage ... the team next plans to investigate if lithium chloride can blunt other forms of neurological damage, such as that resulting from trauma and stroke, both of which can kill large groups of brain cells" - See lithium supplements at Amazon.com.
• Trace elements of lithium in drinking water linked to longer life in Alzheimer's patients - Science Daily, 12/5/17 - "We found counties that had above the median level of lithium in tap water (40 micrograms per litre) experienced less increases in Alzheimer's disease mortality over time, whereas counties below that median level had even higher increases in Alzheimer's deaths over time ... The frequency of obesity and Type 2 diabetes also went down when the drinking water contained similar lithium levels ... Previous studies have demonstrated lithium's ability to protect against Alzheimer's disease, obesity and diabetes ... The Brock research comes on the heels of an August study from the University of Copenhagen linking high lithium levels in drinking water to decreases in dementia rates"
• Lithium in Drinking Water May Lower Dementia Risk - Medscape, 8/23/17 - "Animal studies have shown that lithium improves learning and memory, and observational studies suggest lithium may reduce the risk for dementia in patients with bipolar disorder ... In addition, a randomized placebo-controlled trial showed that daily treatment with subtherapeutic doses (150 to 600 mg) of lithium has stabilizing effects in adults with mild cognitive impairment, while a separate controlled trial showed that a microdose (300 µg/d) of lithium stabilized cognitive impairment in patients with Alzheimer's disease ... The hypothesis that a low lithium concentration in drinking water may protect against dementia is "mechanistically plausible" as lithium effects many biological pathways linked to neuroprogressive and neurodegenerative disorders"
• Lithium Beats Newer Meds for Bipolar Disorder - WebMD, 5/12/16
• Lithium study helps scientists unlock ageing puzzle - BBC News, 4/7/16 - "fruit flies lived 16% longer than average when given low doses of lithium ... At high doses, lithium reduced their lifespan ... We found low doses not only prolong life but also shield the body from stress and block fat production for flies on a high sugar diet" - See lithium supplements at Amazon.com.
• Lithium Still Best Medication for Preventing Bipolar Relapse - Medscape, 4/6/15 - "even with prophylactic medication, relapse rates are high and are correlated with alcohol use, psychiatric comorbidities, life events, and the type of maintenance medication used ... maintenance therapy with lithium (n = 49) prevented relapse longer than therapy with other mood stabilizers (n = 250). Half of the patients receiving lithium had a first relapse between 1300 and 1400 days vs slightly less than 400 days with the other drugs"
• Should We All Take a Bit of Lithium? - NYTimes.com, 9/13/14 - "Lithium is a naturally occurring element, not a molecule like most medications, and it is present in the United States, depending on the geographic area, at concentrations that can range widely, from undetectable to around .170 milligrams per liter. This amount is less than a thousandth of the minimum daily dose given for bipolar disorders and for depression that doesn’t respond to antidepressants ... Suicide rates were inversely correlated with the lithium content in the local water supply ... Lithium is, by far, the most proven drug to keep neurons alive, in animals and in humans, consistently and with many replicated studies ... If lithium prevents dementia, then we may have overlooked a very simple means of preventing a major public health problem" - See lithium supplements at Amazon.com.
• Lithium's Role in Suicide Prevention Reinforced - Medscape, 6/27/13
• Lithium restores cognitive function in Down syndrome mice - Science Daily, 12/3/12
• Lithium's Safety Examined - Medscape, 1/19/12 - "Lithium is linked to thyroid and parathyroid abnormalities, weight gain, and an increased risk for reduced urinary concentrating ability ... lithium is the most effective long-term therapy for bipolar disorder, protecting against both depression and mania and reducing the risk of suicide and short-term mortality ... lithium has always been an unpatented, cheap drug, it is not commercially promoted ... lithium reduced glomerular filtration rate by an average of −6.22 mL/min (95% confidence interval [CI], −14.65 to 2.20, P = 0.148) and urinary concentrating ability by 15% of normal maximum (weighted mean difference ... There was an increase in the prevalence of clinical hypothyroidism in patients taking lithium ... lithium increased thyroid stimulating hormone by an average of 4.00 iU/mL"
• Lithium Trumps Valproate for Bipolar Disorder - Medscape, 7/25/11
• Lithium profoundly prevents brain damage associated with Parkinson's disease, mouse study suggests - Science Daily, 6/24/11 - "lithium has recently been suggested to be neuroprotective in relation to several neurodegenerative conditions including Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and has been touted for its anti-aging properties in simple animals"
• Controversial call to add lithium to drinking water for mental health - The Daily, 5/22/11 - "It's a provocative prospect that research suggests might reduce rates of suicide, violent crime and hard drug use ... The idea gained widespread traction in 2009, when researchers studying 18 communities in Japan concluded that areas whose water supplies contained higher natural levels of lithium were significantly less vulnerable to suicide ... A subsequent study published this month in the British Journal of Psychiatry, surveying all 99 counties in Austria over five years, replicated the findings and concluded that - conservatively - 4 to 15 percent of the country's geographic variations in suicides was due to lithium content in regional water supplies"
• More Lithium in Drinking Water Equals Lower Suicide Rates - Medscape, 5/12/11 - "The finding, similar to that from 3 different countries on different continents, adds to the evidence that lithium in the drinking water may have beneficial effects for mental health ... examined a nationwide sample of 6460 lithium measurements and then compared suicide rates across 99 districts in Austria ... the overall suicide rate and the suicide mortality ratio were inversely associated with lithium levels in drinking water ... In the 10 most lithium-depleted regions in Austria, the suicide rate was 16 per 100,000, whereas in the 10 most lithium-rich regions; the suicide rate was just 11 per 100,000"
• Lithium in drinking water in Andean villages could affect thyroid function, research suggests - Science Daily, 4/5/11
• Fountain of youth from the tap? Environmental lithium uptake promotes longevity, scientists demonstrate in worms - Science Daily, 2/18/11 - "A regular uptake of the trace element lithium can considerably promote longevity ... even a low concentration of lithium leads to an increased life expectancy in humans as well as in a model organism, the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans ... the Jena scientists analyzed the mortality rate in 18 adjacent Japanese municipalities in relation to the amount of lithium contained in tap water from the respective regions. "We found that the mortality rate was considerably lower in those municipalities with more lithium in the drinking water," Ristow explains the key finding. In a second experiment, the Jena scientists examined exactly this range of concentration in the model organism C. elegans. The result was confirmed: "The average longevity of the worms is higher after they have been treated with lithium at this dosage," ... we know already that a higher uptake of lithium through drinking water is associated with an improvement of psychological well-being and with decreased suicide rates"
• Treatment for manic-depressive illness restores brain volume deficits - Science Daily, 2/16/10 - "bipolar patients taking lithium displayed significantly increased hippocampal and amygdala volume compared with patients not treated with lithium and healthy comparison subjects. Cerebral volume reduction was also significantly associated with illness duration in bipolar individuals" - See lithium products at iHerb.
• Possible mechanism identified for how lithium treats bipolar disorder - Science Daily, 6/17/10
• Lithium May Help Radiation Target Cancer, Spare Healthy Tissue - Science Daily, 5/4/09
• Lithium And The Brain: New Light On Bipolar Treatment Drugs - Science Daily, 4/21/09
• Lithium Protects Brain Cells During Cranial Radiation - Science Daily, 4/1/09
• Drug Commonly Used To Treat Bipolar Disorder Dramatically Increases Lifespan In Worms - Science Daily, 10/30/07 - "Nematode worms treated with lithium show a 46 percent increase in lifespan, raising the tantalizing question of whether humans taking the mood affecting drug are also taking an anti-aging medication"
• Lithium And Bone Healing - WebMD, 7/30/07
• Lithium and Hair Loss - Medscape, 7/30/07
• Lithium Builds Gray Matter in Bipolar Brains - Doctor's Guide, 4/11/07
• A Comparison of Lithium and T3 Augmentation Following Two Failed Medication Treatments for Depression: A STAR*D Report - Am J Psychiatry. 2006 Sep;163(9):1519-30 - "After a mean of 9.6 weeks (SD=5.2) of treatment, remission rates were 15.9% with lithium augmentation and 24.7% with T(3) augmentation" - See T3 at International Anti-aging Systems.
• Lithium, Olanzapine Affect Different Domains in Bipolar - Clinical Psychiatry News, 11/05
• Olanzapine May Be Better Than Lithium in Bipolar Disorder - Medscape, 7/8/05
• Bipolar Relapse on Monotherapy Can Be Stabilized by Restarting Combination Lithium, Divalproex - Doctor's Guide, 10/25/04
• Lithium and Venlafaxine Both Helpful Adjuncts in Depressed Patients Unresponsive to Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors - Doctor's Guide, 10/19/04
• Lithium May Protect Neurons From Radiation Therapy - Science Daily, 10/15/04
• Lithium Augmentation of Venlafaxine - Clinical Psychiatry News, 10/04
• Lamotrigine/Lithium Combination Shows Potential for Bipolar I Disorder - Doctor's Guide, 6/22/04
• Lithium Raises Older Patients' Car Crash Risk - Clinical Psychiatry News, 4/04
• Lithium May Be an Effective Treatment for the Prevention of Relapses in Bipolar Disorder - Doctor's Guide, 2/9/04
• Lithium Use Associated with Injurious Motor Vehicle Accidents Among Older Drivers, But No Similar Association Seen with Carbamazepine Use - Doctor's Guide, 1/20/04
• Lamotrigine and Lithium Appear Effective as Maintenance Therapy for Early Bipolar Disorder - Doctor's Guide, 12/3/03
• Lithium Prophylaxis Appears Safe, Effective For Unipolar Major Depressive Disorder - Doctor's Guide, 12/3/03
• Lithium, Divalproex Similarly Efficacious in Paediatric Bipolar Disorder - Doctor's Guide, 10/27/03
• Risk Of Suicide Attempt and Death Higher With Divalproex Than With Lithium In Patients With Bipolar Disorder - Doctor's Guide, 10/13/03
• Suicide Risk Lower Among Bipolar Disorder Patients Using Lithium Compared with Divalproex - Doctor's Guide, 9/17/03
• Quetiapine Rivals Lithium, Haloperidol - Clinical Psychiatry News, 7/03
• Switching Elderly Bipolar Patients From Lithium To Valproic Acid Questioned - Doctor's Guide, 5/1/03
• Lithium Lessons Learned - Psychiatric News, 4/18/03
• Lithium Remains Key in Bipolar Treatment - Clinical Psychiatry News, 1/03
• Lithium May Address Aggression in Children with Conduct Disorder - Doctor's Guide, 10/29/02
• Both Lamotrigine, Lithium Delay Relapse of Bipolar Disorder - Clinical Psychiatry News, 10/02
• Expert: Lithium Favored for Bipolar Suicide Risk - Clinical Psychiatry News, 9/02
• New Data Suggest Zyprexa (Olanzapine) Superior To Standard Of Care (Lithium) For Preventing Mania Relapse In Bipolar Disorder - Doctor's Guide, 9/16/02
• Boosting Fluoxetine As Effective As Adding Lithium Or Desipramine For Unresponsive Depression - Doctor's Guide, 8/30/02
• Lamotrigine and Lithium Effective for Complementary Maintenance Therapy of Bipolar Symptoms - Doctor's Guide, 6/26/02
• Olanzapine Plus Lithium or Valproate Effective for Bipolar Relapse Prevention - Doctor's Guide, 5/22/02
• Monitor Kidney Function With Long-Term Lithium - Clinical Psychiatry News, 4/02
• The Complex Interrelationship of Lithium and the Thyroid - Psychiatric Times, 1/02

Abstracts:

• Lithium treatment extends human lifespan: findings from the UK Biobank - "therapeutic supplementation of lithium linked to decreased mortality (p = 0.0017) of individuals diagnosed with affective disorders. Subsequent multivariate survival analyses reveal lithium to be the strongest factor in regards to increased survival effects (hazard ratio = 0.274 [0.119-0.634 CI 95%, p = 0.0023]), corresponding to 3.641 times lower (95% CI 1.577-8.407) chances of dying at a given age for lithium users compared to users of other anti-psychotic drugs. While these results may further support the use of lithium as a geroprotective supplement, it should be noted that doses applied within the UK Biobank/NHS setting require close supervision by qualified medical professionals" - See lithium supplements at Amazon.com.
• Low-Dose Lithium Supplementation Influences GSK3β Activity in a Brain Region Specific Manner in C57BL6 Male Mice - J Alzheimers Dis 2022 Dec 1 - "Lithium, a commonly used treatment for bipolar disorder, has been shown to have neuroprotective effects for other conditions including Alzheimer's disease via the inhibition of the enzyme glycogen synthase kinase-3 (GSK3). However, dose-dependent adverse effects of lithium are well-documented, highlighting the need to determine if low doses of lithium can reliably reduce GSK3 activity ... Results demonstrated reduced GSK3 activity in the prefrontal cortex as early as 6 weeks of lithium supplementation, in the absence of inhibitory phosphorylation changes. Further, lithium supplementation in an obese model reduced prefrontal cortex GSK3 activity as well as improved insulin sensitivity ... Collectively, these data provide evidence for low-dose lithium supplementation to inhibit GSK3 activity in the brain. Moreover, these results indicate that GSK3 activity can be inhibited despite any changes in phosphorylation. These findings contribute to an overall greater understanding of low-dose lithium's ability to influence GSK3 activity in the brain and its potential as an Alzheimer's disease prophylactic" - See lithium supplements at Amazon.com.
• Differences in the prophylactic effect of serum lithium levels on depression and mania in bipolar disorder: A dose-response meta-analysis - Eur Neuropsychopharmacol 2022 Feb 11 - "The dose-response curve showed that increased serum concentrations were associated with a gradual decrease in the risk of any mood episodes (OR 0.50 at 0.60 mmol/l, OR 0.15 at 1.20 mmol/l). The risk of depression decreased slightly with a concentration of 0.60 mmol/l (OR 0.83) but dropped rapidly as the concentration increased to 1.20 mmol/l (OR 0.39). By contrast, the risk for mania initially decreased steadily (OR 0.44), but decreased only marginally (OR 0.30) as the concentration increased. To reduce the recurrence risk to 56%, prevention of depression required a higher concentration than that required for mania (1.13 mmol/l vs. 0.60 mmol/l). Our results suggest a negative dose-response relationship between serum lithium levels and risk of recurrence. In particular, the different preventive effects of serum concentration on depression and mania will be an important clinical reference"
• Neutrons show a connection between lithium concentrations in the brain and depression - Science Daily, 5/21/21 - "Lithium is familiar to many of us from rechargeable batteries. Most people ingest lithium on a daily basis in drinking water. International studies have shown that a higher natural lithium content in drinking water coincides with a lower suicide rate among the population" - See lithium supplements at Amazon.com.
• Lithium as a Treatment for Alzheimer's Disease: The Systems Pharmacology Perspective - J Alzheimers Dis. 2019;69(3):615-62 - "Lithium chloride, a pharmacological compound approved for the therapy of psychiatric disorders, represents a poorly explored compound for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Lithium has been shown to reduce downstream effects associated with the aberrant overactivation of certain molecular pathways, such as glycogen synthase kinase 3 subunit β (GSK3-β)-related pathways, involved in AD-related pathophysiology. It seems that overactivation and overexpression of GSK3-β lead to an impairment of long-term potentiation and amyloid-β induced neurotoxicity that can be normalized using lithium. Moreover, a growing body of evidence has demonstrated that lithium's GSK3-β inhibitory effect prevents tau phosphorylation in mouse models of tauopathies. Clinical data have been inconclusive, partly due to methodological limitations. The lack of studies exploring the dynamics of protein misfolding in AD and investigating the specific tau-isoforms appearing prior to the accumulation of neurofibrillary tangles calls for new and optimized clinical trials. Advanced computer modeling based on a formal implementation of quantitative parameters and basic enzymatic insights into a mechanism-based model would present a good start to tackle these non-linear interactions. This innovative approach will pave the way for developing "molecularly" biomarker-guided targeted therapies, i.e., treatments specifically adapted ("tailored") to the individual, consistently with the primary objectives and key conceptual points of precision medicine and precision pharmacology" - See lithium supplements at Amazon.com.
• Leukocyte telomere length positively correlates with duration of lithium treatment in bipolar disorder patients - Eur Neuropsychopharmacol. 2016 Apr 12 - "Our data support previous findings showing that long-term lithium treatment associates with longer telomeres in BD, though this effect appeared to be independent from clinical response to the treatment. Moreover, we suggested for the first time that lithium increases the expression of telomerase gene in human neural progenitor cells"
• Does Lithium Prevent Alzheimer's Disease? - Drugs Aging. 2012 Apr 14 - "Lithium salts have a well-established role in the treatment of major affective disorders. More recently, experimental and clinical studies have provided evidence that lithium may also exert neuroprotective effects. In animal and cell culture models, lithium has been shown to increase neuronal viability through a combination of mechanisms that includes the inhibition of apoptosis, regulation of autophagy, increased mitochondrial function, and synthesis of neurotrophic factors. In humans, lithium treatment has been associated with humoral and structural evidence of neuroprotection, such as increased expression of anti-apoptotic genes, inhibition of cellular oxidative stress, synthesis of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), cortical thickening, increased grey matter density, and hippocampal enlargement ... A recent placebo-controlled clinical trial in patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI) showed that long-term lithium treatment may actually slow the progression of cognitive and functional deficits, and also attenuate Tau hyperphosphorylation in the MCI-AD continuum"
• A Comparison of Lithium and T3 Augmentation Following Two Failed Medication Treatments for Depression: A STAR*D Report - Am J Psychiatry. 2006 Sep;163(9):1519-30 - "After a mean of 9.6 weeks (SD=5.2) of treatment, remission rates were 15.9% with lithium augmentation and 24.7% with T(3) augmentation" - See T3 at International Anti-aging Systems.