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A Japanese study has shown that even low levels of lithium in drinking water can curb suicide. Think we should start lithium-ating our water?
A Japanese study has shown that even low levels of lithium in drinking water can curb suicide. Think we should start lithium-ating our water?
Lithium is no fun. It should be used only in people who need it, not on a preventative basis.
Here are some other things you could put in drinking water to curb suicide:
Haldol
Arsenic
Strippers
This is scientific fact.
Lithium is no fun. It should be used only in people who need it, not on a preventative basis.
Here are some other things you could put in drinking water to curb suicide:
Haldol
Arsenic
Strippers
This is scientific fact.
Lithium is no fun. It should be used only in people who need it, not on a preventative basis.
Here are some other things you could put in drinking water to curb suicide:
Haldol
Arsenic
Strippers
This is scientific fact.
Sources?
And lithium toxicity is no fun. The concentrations the study mentions seem to be miniscule, homeopathic even. People were drinking far higher concentrations in 7 Up back in the day. (BTW, just playing devil's advocate here.)
Lithium is no fun. It should be used only in people who need it, not on a preventative basis.
A typical therapeutic dose of lithium might be 1000 mg of lithium carbonate, which would be equivalent to 188 mg of the lithium ions that the article is presumably talking about. The maximum level of lithium quoted in the article is 59 μg/L, which would equate to 64.6 mg per year based on 3 L of tap water consumption per day. So it would take three years to consume the equivalent daily therapeutic dose. Of course this is all without reading the actual paper, so there may be more going on, but it sounds a little implausible based on what the news article states.
while we're at it, let's throw in a little zoloft (short half life, good side effect profile), a little modafinil (helping all of us sleep-starved people, not to mention better cognitive performance), a touch of orlistat, a little lipitor, and some metformin for all the fatties, and lets not forget abilify and seroquel, which are both on the verge of getting approval for every condition in the DSM-V.
WOOHOO!!! better living through chemistry!
I really dont understand why you all are mocking this w/o actually presenting evidence about what trace levels would do.
I really dont understand why you all are mocking this w/o actually presenting evidence about what trace levels would do.
I really dont understand why you all are mocking this w/o actually presenting evidence about what trace levels would do.
Obviously this might be more "extreme" than some other fortifications, but we are no strangers to adding potentially deadly things to food/water supply.
We have vitamin D fortified milk.
We have iodized salt.
Vitamin A fortified sugar.
Folic Acid in Flour
Niacin in Bread.
Fluoridation of water.
Epidemiolgoic studies like the one described in the article are not very good at establishing causation. For example, the incidence of stroke is higher in the Southeast. Does that mean living in the Southeast causes strokes? Of course not. Obesity, hypertension, smoking, diabetes, and sedentary lifestyle (all causes of stroke) just happen to be more common in the Southeast. In this instance, living in the Southeast would be considered a "confounder" since it can be associated with stroke but doesn't cause stroke.
Stronger studies that look more directly at the relationships between, in this case, very low lithium levels in the water and decreased suicide would be required in order to establish that low lithium levels in the water actually reduces suicide.
the EPA official interviewed is named Grumbles.
I want to be a bureaucrat named Grumbles.
Better have a REALLY good reason for putting lithium into people.
And lithium by itself is a terrible medication. Loss of thyroid function, lethargy, weight gain, near-complete suppression of any mood of any kind and whatnot. Better have a REALLY good reason for putting lithium into people.
This.
Both of them are awful. No treatment is even more awful. Just about anything you can do for treating bipolar disorder is awful, only overshadowed by not treating....Only one of them is awesome.
So, MS3s, don't show up to your psych rotation decrying lithium, one of the most important, life-saving drugs in our pharmacopoeia, until your attending does. And same goes for depakote.
This.and lithium is thy medication, that hath done for thee these great and terrible things, which thine eyes have seen.