Lithium: The untold story of the magic mineral

As far as cosmologists can tell, there were only three elements present when the universe was first formed some 13.8 billion years ago: hydrogen, helium, and lithium. As one of the three original elements, lithium is found throughout our atmosphere. The sun, stars, and meteorites burn brightly with the flame of this highly reactive element. On earth, lithium remains a major mineral component of granite rock, and also lingers in significant amounts in sea water, mineral springs, and soils. Lithium has also found its way into our cell phones, electric cars, and holiday fireworks. Every organ and tissue in the human body contains the mineral lithium, with particular importance in brain health.

Today, we do not tend to think of lithium as an essential mineral in human physiology and its critical use for expanding technology. Lithium does not evoke visions of stars, peaceful rivers, or strong, healthy bodies. Instead images of lithium are associated with pharmacies, doctor's offices, and back wards of psychiatric hospitals. Lithium is perceived, almost exclusively, as a dangerous drug used to treat severe mental illness with incapacitating side effects.

In a recent review in the New York Times titled "I Don't Believe in God, but I Believe in Lithium," author Jamie Lowe delivered a powerful testimony of her dramatic response to lithium - the drug that alleviated her mania and allowed her to live a normal, happy life. Her article also describes the kidney damage that has forced her to stop lithium and placed her on a waiting list for potential kidney transplant. She provides a unique insight into the life-changing prescriptive benefits of lithium, and the overwhelming fear she has of life without her lithium; a life without her sanity.

I have treated thousands of patients with similar backgrounds as Jamie's. This raised the question, how can a medicine provide such life-changing effects on mental health yet cause permanent damage to kidney and often thyroid function?

Twenty-five years ago, I attempted to answer this question by looking for the lowest dose of lithium that would alleviate symptoms. Rather than basing my prescription dosage on a number from a lab test that dictated a "therapeutic blood level," I listened to my patients. I began to see that patients on a lower dose of lithium - doses closer to the trace amounts found naturally in the environment - still experienced significant clinical results.

Psychiatry has much to learn from the untold story of one of its oldest drugs.

I believe that lithium is the most effective medication in psychiatry. Psychiatrists over the years have been hesitant to prescribe lithium because it is toxic at pharmaceutical doses. Concerns about side effects and toxicity are nonexistent when lithium is used as a nutritional, low-dose supplement. The untapped potential of low-dose lithium in psychiatry has implications for dramatically changing clinical practice with a safe, integrative strategy for the treatment of mental illness....<<<Read More>>>...