Top Takeaways:
Lithium has an interesting history
Lithium in small consistent doses reduces all cause mortality including prevention or reduction of depression, cognitive decline (dementia & Alzheimer’s) & prevention of cancer metastasis among many other conditions
Lithium is practical for reducing immediate socio-emotional stress
Lithium is one of very few drugs or substances FDA approved outside of patent incentives
Lithium Orotate is cheap - 20-30 dollars/year. The best value anti-aging substance I know of.
(transcript)
I'm gonna be talking with my dad about lithium and he can't see the screen so bear with us
we were just talking about what is lithium and I think you, and you were saying that you're aware of its use psychiatry vaguely, but, okay. It, so I have a screen up in front of me. It's the periodic table of the elements and lithium is on the far left side. And it's one of the first elements created after the big bang. So it's actually element number three. They're number they're numbered.
Hydrogen is number one. Helium is number two and lithium is number three the numbers also correspond to the number of protons in the nucleus and so hydrogen has essentially one proton and one electron and then helium has two protons and two electrons and lithium has three protons and three electrons.
And it happens to have the most common form happens to have four neutrons. But let's just ignore the neutrons for a minute. So lithium has this atomic number of three and it's on the left side of the periodic table and that's important. All of the elements on the left side, basically give away electrons very easily. And then all the furthest right on the periodic table, they actually, they either take nor gain electrons, but the ones, one, one in, from the far right.
They are very eager to grab electrons alkaline metals is what we call the ones on the far left and the ones that are eager to get electrons, they're called the halogens and when they put together they're salts and the ones you're, the one you're most familiar with are everybody's most familiar with is table salt is sodium, which is one down from lithium and it's column and chlorine, which is just over on the same with the same row as sodium.
So basically when you put salt in water, the Alka eye, the one on the far left gives away its electron it becomes positively charged and it's called cat ion and the one on the right is takes that electron and becomes negatively charged. And it's called an anion. So you put your table salt in water and it dissolves and then you get cat ion and anion in this case lithium almost always comes as a salt and it becomes in the solution it's lithium plus which means it's lost one electron there are a variety of types of salts, it's commonly found in salt form, the psychiatric, the typical psychiatric medicine is lithium carbonate lithium is, it's a metal, it's an alkaline metal and it dissolves as a salt in solution and in the body.
Maybe because you're not used to thinking about the metals that are on the far left of the periodic table, you're probably used to thinking of iron or gold. Those are all metals essentially. A huge portion of the periodic table are metals
potassium I'm is very similar. Does a lot of similar things to lithium and I'm quite interested in potassium technically it's a metal, although, it's in food, copper, zinc probably in supplements I've given you and they're they're definitely metals as well.
But we can't really, we can't really make any gross generalizations about metal. Some are terrible for you. And. like mercury is also metal and it's terrible. That's a metal terrible for you. You don't wanna, so we don't wanna make any generalizations there.
I've been spending a lot of time looking into potassium, which is chemically very closely related and and I realized I'd not done a more thorough job on lithium there have been a number of really interesting findings in lithium
it was already known to help with Mania depression it can basically prevent depression and it can treat mania. It doesn't seem to be able to treat depression once it's started, but you can be it's a prophylactic for most of the dementias, including Alzheimer's. So that's the big one.
And it seems to prevent all cause mortality. So that means from everything. So I'm trying to figure out plausible reasons why that might be the case and I think it's because it blocks certain stress hormones, and it and then by doing that, it allows more blood and oxygen and nutrients to get to essentially all the tissues and that's the main mechanism of action. Now, there are other molecules that the literature talks about at hitting, but those are secondary, in my opinion
The typical way they talk about it in the literature is not like I'm just talking about it. Although I think both are true. There's literature saying it essentially blocks adrenaline and then there's literature talking about it on the cellular level and how it inhibits this thing called GSK three.
Which basically is involved in all kinds of cellular signaling of stress. I think it's a composite thing I'm looking at the total system level and the researchers are looking at the cell just cellular only level. So I think they're both consistent, in my, the model that I'm gonna be articulating, if someone is essentially less stressed, they are increasing their metabolism.
They're perfusing their brain and their peripheral tissues with blood. They're getting better digestion and they're much more likely to live healthier and longer lives.
We already have proof of more longevity with lithium, so it's that's like a given it's just that the mechanisms are still being worked out and so I'm offering a slightly different view than the sort of a low level biochemical view, which is, I think also true.
It's just not the whole story. I'm not a medical professional, but based on the literature, it looks like it's a good idea for me and others. Human beings to ingest the appropriate amount of lithium to Live longer now what the appropriate amount probably depends on someone's potential for kidney disease and, they would, they should check with their doctor.
There are dramatically different doses for. say health effects versus pharmaceutical effects for cases of mania and bipolar. They use a thousand milligrams or more a day, or like on the order of a thousand milligrams, which is one gram.
And in the studies where they're showing longevity they're getting it from their drinking water in the order of half a gram or half, sorry, half a milligram. So there's some sweet spot that is somewhere around a milligram or maybe slightly more, less than a milligram for longevity.
And then there's a known toxic effect of, persistent use of. I'm gonna call it high doses, but high, like greater than 500 milligrams of lithium daily essentially, there's a trade off if you're getting great psychia psychiatric benefit from taking 500 milligrams or a thousand milligrams and that comes at the risk mostly of kidney failure.
Why don't I tell you I'll tell you how I'm gonna approach it for myself which is for me to try to find the minimum effective dose. So there's two things, I guess one is the risks are also related to the composition of other I'm gonna call ions and the person's diet, but especially sodium and potassium.
So you could, so the, so one is you can mitigate the risks of taking and you should mitigate the risks of taking lithium and the other is that you there's basically at a low dose, there's a negative risk of any kind of problem. So minimize the dose, ha try to find the minimum effective dose and then mitigate the risks the right amount of potassium seems to be very helpful for both like hypertension from sodium and then kidney disease from lithium.
How does a person who, know how to figure out the minimum effective dose and. I suggest that we just have to, go to the research, which is if you wanna be precautionary you take essentially only one milligram or so per day if it's only like for longevity per purposes and then then have higher doses, like five milligrams and 10 milligrams around for times of stress. Because get most likely 10 milligrams for most people is also, like not going to produce any negative physiological consequences and and it'll very effectively block a lot of adrenaline.
However what I've experienced is if you take 10 milligrams fairly consistently, you almost feel too relaxed most people will just want to reduce it to feel a little more energized
Will the effects be noticeable when I'm taking. Sufficient or even a little bit too much lithium
in my experience lithium is very obvious at the 10 and 20 milligram level.
And I think it's possible that if people are experiencing something on the spectrum of mania or bipolar, they would actually not notice that, but outside those, the potential for those conditions then they would, you should definitely notice it. People with it in their drinking water don't seem to consciously notice it, but they also don't have any experience of the opposite, cuz it's all, it's everywhere in their world, in their local world. There are studies out of Texas and Japan where it's in relatively high concentrations in the drinking water and the that's where they're showing noticeable effects on the whole population's longevity.
It's a mineral found in the dirt. It's a, it's one of the most common minerals in the universe. So it in, in rock, essentially, it's getting leached out and it's in the water with other minerals
the typical conception of lithium is as a pharmaceutical for people with with severe mental illness and. And yet it's actually all over the place. In, in some populations it's in higher concentrations in the drinking water and some it's in relatively low.
It happens to have been in the soda that became seven up. So in 1929, yeah, seven up the number seven from seven up is the molecular weight of lithium.
and up is because it prevented people from essentially made them feel better, but it doesn't actually make them up in the traditional, in the current sense of up, but it made 'em feel better. It's got this like long, this, the name that it was originally, it was called bib label, lithiated lemon lime soda.
Released it in 1929, it had lithium citrate as the primary mood altering substance. And and then it was the lithium was taken out in 1948, but that's how Sev yeah, that's how seven up got its name. And that's how it got started and it's from us mineral Springs in Georgia, the guy, whoever the entrepreneur has started bottling.
Let me see if I can pull up the guy. He started bottling the water and selling it and people.
No, he didn't add it at least initially it wasn't added as an extra, it was in the water, but he might, they might have added it later at some scale they probably had to add it, but
Coca-Cola used to have a, an active ingredient as well. Okay. What else should we, what should I make sure I cover? That's, a lot of the history I would say. The main thing I find interesting in the history is that it was a substance that didn't have a PA it doesn't really have patent protection let me just let explain this to you.
A drug has to be PA like a drug has to have a novel has to be like new, not in nature for it to be patentable. So everything that is a natural substance is for the most part UN patentable there is a giant void in our public funding, public or private funding for medicines that are from the most common elements and molecules that are around because there's no financial incentive to do the appropriate clinical trials for anything that is either a natural substance or even a pharmaceutical that is old because it's the patents of lapsed. So there's a lot of old drugs that are actually very useful for things that that will never get the right kinds of evidence to be considered part of the modern pharmacopia or pharmaceutical scheduling. I find that actually something worth potentially writing a lot more about, because I feel like there's a potential public policy solution it's bipartisan, but ultimately it's the pharmaceutical companies would not want the kind of competition from really cheap drugs.
Lithium falls into that category, but unlike almost everything else, it has proven so effective that it got a ground swell of psychiatrist writing into the FDA, asking for some kind of special authority to do a study, which then they were basically just using the lithium for that to give to their patients.
So that happened in the late sixties that Basically the FDA approved it because it was just costing them too much effort to evaluate and approve all the submissions coming in from the wave of support for lithium.
What's my conclusion? There's too many things that lithium is potentially good for. I'm reading from a Dr. Jonathan Wright, MD and some newsletter that he wrote that I found online. But anyway, all right, here are the things that he thinks low dose lithium can do:
one it's, it causes the formation of new brain cells in adults. So it helps with neurogenesis. It reduces or prevents Alzheimer's disease. It projects, brain cells against almost all toxins it increases another brain protective protein. Great. It reduces brain cell death under the experience of ischemic stroke.
It does other signaling for for brain repair it apparently it improves the sense of direction, which again, is related to the nervous system. It it'll, this is strange and takes it'll take me more looking into this, but it eliminates something called Subic dermatitis. It reduces aggressive behavior.
It reduces aggressive behavior in sorry, in both children and adults. And it reduces depression and irritability in women and aggressive behavior again in men. Let's see. And it prevents relapse for addicts to, for both drugs and alcohol. It reduces mental health burdens for hospitals. It reduces symptoms of fibromyalgia it can significantly reduce cluster headaches and it has it's been shown to be effective topically for herpes. And I think I saw one for PA virus and then it also helps fight the common cold Epstein bar and cytomegalovirus and it Treats hyperthyroidism and graves disease when combined with iodine, it can help treat gout when combined with vitamin C and I've seen, but this is, she's not on our list, but I've seen recent studies where it's helpful in fighting cancer, because it helps boost the immune system in efficient ways.
Sourcing and a reasonable strategy for use
I buy lithium orate, which is actually slightly more apparently slightly stronger per milligram than lithium carbonate, but the lithium orate is readily available on Amazon where lithium carbonate is a much harder to get pharmaceutical drug.
I buy the $7 bottle of lithium orate five milligrams and it's 120 capsules. So that's essentially four months worth of supply for somewhere around seven bucks
I think if somebody wants the benefits that I've described, that they should consider lithium I would even go further. I think it's good for relationships. And then there's, there are more conditions, I guess I'll get into later but essentially, yes. I, I would, I wanna be cheeky and say, if you want any of the benefits you should check with your conscience and, or your doctor and pursue it as you wish.
In a case of someone that is taking certain classes of blood pressure, lowering medications it's likely to make you even more drowsy or, and, or be that you would need a much smaller dose because you're retaining positive cat ions in your kidneys.
Because that's how the certain classes of drugs work. So basically the more drugs you take, the more you gotta check with your doctor to make sure that of the interactions. Unfortunately, most doctors are not gonna know. So you really just need, you can, you'll have to do the homework. You can check with me not that I'm gonna be able to give you medical advice, but can help steer people in the lines of how to do an investigation of what, what interactions there are.
Assuming someone doesn't have a kidney condition and and doesn't have a, does isn't taking any other major pharmaceuticals started there as a baseline, then it seems very plausible that taking anywhere between a half a milligram and five milligrams perpetually is like a really good idea for increasing quality and length of life.
It'll cost a grand spanking for $20 a month, a year. Sorry. yeah. 20 bucks a year it's probably the, it's probably the best bang for buck molecule right now and that's why I'm starting with it essentially is the first thing I'm talking about thanks for playing along.