The Protective Effects of Lithium

 

“The science world is full of information on how low dose lithium can be used for anti-aging, treatment of bipolar disorder, to stop the brain from looping, help preserve memory as well as for its anti-suicide properties.”

 

Recently there has been a national recall of thousands of bottles of a pain killer due to the presence of lead and lithium above specification. The lead and lithium should not be found in the drug; lead is toxic but low dose lithium on the other hand has been found to be therapeutic. The drug Naproxen, oral solution/suspension, is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) that blocks the body’s production of natural substances that cause pain, fever and inflammation.

Natural substances are a wide-open category: sugar is natural, so is seed oil, heavily sprayed crops with herbicides and pesticides would be called natural as well as grains that have all their nutrients extracted.

Drugs mask the origin of the condition—the toxins signal warnings that something is deeply wrong—and instead of examining the root causal chain and to treat the core illness medical doctors prescribe drugs to block the symptoms that are causing pain, fever and inflammation. There becomes no relief from the sickness, it just continues to amplify while the drugs offer temporary relief so the person can cope. In time the drugs need to be increased in strength as the body tries to adjust. This becomes the patient’s life carrying the sickness with its toxic buildup as new drugs are prescribed because the disease origin continues to intensify and spread as the patient’s body deteriorates.

What is lithium?

Lithium is a trace mineral that can be found throughout our atmosphere, in our organs and tissues but also in food (the main sources are generally nuts, legumes, cereal grains and vegetables) and water supplies. According to Japanese research, “[l]ithium level in tap water was inversely associated with depressive symptoms and interpersonal violence among a general population of adolescents and may have anti-depressive and anti-aggressive effects.”[1]

Higher lithium levels in water have been linked to longer life expectancy and a reduced risk of neurodegenerative diseases. A published study in the European Journal of Nutrition titled Low-dose lithium uptake promotes longevity in humans and metazoans shows that in humans there is “an inverse correlation between drinking water with lithium concentrations and all-cause mortality in 18 neighboring Japanese municipalities with a total of 1,206,174 individuals (B = -0.661.p =0.003).” The study also states that “exposure to a comparably low concentration of lithium chloride extends life span of C. elegans (p=0.047).”[2] This means that higher levels of lithium were associated with reduced mortality.

As a drug, lithium is prescribed to treat bipolar 1 disorder (manic and mixed episodes), bipolar 11 disorder (hypomanic and depressive episodes), major depressive disorder (treatment-resistant cases), schizoaffective disorder, vascular headaches (chronic cluster headaches) and neutropenia (chemotherapy-induced low white blood cells).

It was used clinically and approved in several countries during the 1950s and 1960s. In the United States lithium was approved by the FDA in 1970, for the treatment of acute mania in bipolar disorder. Early studies showed its many benefits; according to The Clinical Applications of Lithium Orotate. A Two Years Study by H.A. Nieper from 1973 “[s]ixty-four patients were treated with lithium orotate and observed for time periods ranging from four months to two- and one-half years. Lithium orotate is of truly unparalleled efficiency in the treatment of constitutional migraine, constant headache and hemicrania. Also, in the treatment of depression, alcoholism and epilepsy, lithium orotate has proven very useful without any problems in the application. Lithium orotate is effective at uncommonly low dosages and causes no negative side effects. Lithium citrate and lithium carbonate are far less effective than lithium orotate.”[3]

The benefits of lithium

A study from 2019 published in Neuropsychopharmacology suggests that lithium may be useful for its anti-aging effects within the brain depending on genetics, indicating “a potential use of polygenic risk scoring for the prediction of adult telomere length and consequently lithium’s anti-ageing efficacy.”[4]

Another study from 2023 also showed the link between lithium and telomere length.[5] The study found that lithium helped protect brain cells from damage caused by amyloid-beta, a protein strongly linked to Alzheimer’s disease. In lab-grown neurons, amyloid-beta caused significant cell death and shortened telomeres—protective structures on DNA associated with aging and cellular stress—but pretreatment with low doses of lithium reduced this damage and helped preserve or even restore telomere length. The researchers concluded that lithium may help slow or protect against Alzheimer’s related brain damage by improving the resilience and survival of neurons.

We know from research that Alzheimer’s disease has been linked to an excess accumulation of aluminum within brain cells. Besides the effects coming from having an excess of minerals, an insufficient amount of a trace mineral could also affect the brain. It has recently been discovered that lithium deficiency could be interrelated to the onset of Alzheimer’s, and that low-dose lithium may be helpful for cognitive preservation. According to the article Lithium deficiency and the onset of Alzheimer’s disease “[t]he earliest molecular changes in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are poorly understood. Here we show that endogenous lithium (Li) is dynamically regulated in the brain and contributes to cognitive preservation during ageing. Of the metals we analyzed, Li was the only one that was significantly reduced in the brain in individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a precursor to AD.”[6] According to their findings restoring low-dose lithium in mouse models reversed memory loss and reduced Alzheimer’s pathology, which suggested that lithium deficiency may contribute causally to cognitive decline and could represent a therapeutic target.

The science world is full of information on how low dose lithium can be used for anti-aging, treatment of bipolar disorder, to stop the brain from looping, help preserve memory as well as for its anti-suicide properties. With all these benefits why on earth is not everyone on lithium? For one thing they are not informed of its benefits and another they have made it a protected drug. This is why we developed Lithium homeopathic; it does the exact things society needs and it can be used by all family members. Keep in mind that it works for depression, such a need for young people today,  and low dose lithium that can be purchased over the counter; now that’s a game changer.

 

Life Choice product recommendations:

 

References:

[1] Terao, Takeshi et al. 2017.

[2] Zarse, Kim et al. 2011.

[3] Nieper, H.A. 1973.

[4] Coutts, Fiona et al. 2019.

[5] Themoteo, Rafael M. et al. 2023.

[6] Aron, Liviu et al. 2025.