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Lithium compound can reverse Alzheimer’s in mice: study

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Re: Lithium compound can reverse Alzheimer’s in mice: study

#81

Post by funnym0nk3y »

exmadscientist wrote: post #16
ninetyninenine wrote: post #8

Lithium is a strange drug. It also cures bipolar disorder and nobody knows why. It also fucks up the liver over time and basically people on lithium eventually have to make a choice between dying or being insane.

It's mostly the kidneys that get damaged, not so much the liver. It also has a massive amount of benign or merely annoying side effects. Lithium might even be the drug with the largest overall amount of side effects. It's certainly a weird one. High-dose lithium is extremely hard on your kidneys and may well lead to kidney failure in a decade or so. Medium-dose lithium is a lot more gentle but still requires monitori…

Lithium is far from the drug with the highest amount of side effects among psych meds. Take the first generation antipsychotics for example. They are nasty.

As a matter of fact, lithium patients aren't much worse off when it comes to kidney function. Especially with modern levels of around 0.6 to 0.8 mmols.

Lithium has many modes of action, ion channels like you said, but also GSK3 function, BDNF changes and many more. It even changes the DNA methylation.

Re: Lithium compound can reverse Alzheimer’s in mice: study

#83

Post by vczf »

vczf wrote: post #63
nahikoa wrote: post #62

Given that tens of millions people have been treated for bipolar disorder with Lithium Carbonate, shouldn't researchers have already seen a correlation with Alzheimer's in patients?

From the abstract of the paper: > Replacement therapy with lithium orotate, which is a Li salt with reduced amyloid binding, prevents pathological changes and memory loss in AD mouse models and ageing wild-type mice. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09335-x Another source on lithium orotate: > LiOr is proposed to cross the blood–brain barrier and enter cells more readily than Li2CO3, which will theoreticall…

The important part is this: “a Li salt with reduced amyloid binding”

If cells in the brain are being deprived of lithium due to sequestration by amyloid beta plaques, then a bioavailable form of lithium that is resistant to sequestration may treat the pathology.

Re: Lithium compound can reverse Alzheimer’s in mice: study

#84

Post by Aurornis »

leoh wrote: post #74
Aurornis wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried Lithium Orotate at the typical supplement dose. After the first week it left me feeling rather blah. Discontinuing it reversed the feeling after a few days. I repeated this a couple more times with a repeatable outcome. It’s very hyped in supplement communities with claims that it’s perfectly safe and side effect free. I didn’t get any kidney damage or anything, but I also didn’t get a positive benefit from i…

Not for you, then, right? Pretty normal for many medicines, supplements, etc. I think it’s cool we can try things (even if they don’t always work).

This is typical of a lot of supplements: The benefits are touted as near magic and the negatives are completely dismissed. Then people try it and discover either no effect or end up with side effects.

Re: Lithium compound can reverse Alzheimer’s in mice: study

#85

Post by burnt-resistor »

modeless wrote: post #4

Lithium orotate is available over the counter. People could try it today. > Since lithium has not yet been shown to be safe or effective in protecting against neurodegeneration in humans, Yankner emphasizes that people should not take lithium compounds on their own I reject this kind of blind safetyism. A cursory search suggests that lithium orotate has been used for decades, and the article suggests that "profound e…

Next, on Chubbyemu ...

Re: Lithium compound can reverse Alzheimer’s in mice: study

#86

Post by burnt-resistor »

lawlessone wrote: post #26
modeless wrote: post #4

Lithium orotate is available over the counter. People could try it today. > Since lithium has not yet been shown to be safe or effective in protecting against neurodegeneration in humans, Yankner emphasizes that people should not take lithium compounds on their own I reject this kind of blind safetyism. A cursory search suggests that lithium orotate has been used for decades, and the article suggests that "profound e…

I've heard of suggestions that it should be added to water(in low doses of course) to see it reduces suicide rates. I like the idea but can only imagine the anti-flouride crowd would freak out.

I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion, and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.

Re: Lithium compound can reverse Alzheimer’s in mice: study

#87

Post by burnt-resistor »

Aurornis wrote: post #47
lawlessone wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard of suggestions that it should be added to water(in low doses of course) to see it reduces suicide rates. I like the idea but can only imagine the anti-flouride crowd would freak out.

I tried the low-dose lithium orotate supplements and the net effect was apathy and reduced motivation. Not everyone experiences this but from searching I’m not alone. Definitely not something to start pouring into the water supply.

> apathy and reduced motivation

Shit, that's my baseline. I'd pay for supplements that produced the opposite effect, even by placebo. In the meantime, I'll continue trying to Jedi mindtricking myself into caring, motivation, and productivity.

Re: Lithium compound can reverse Alzheimer’s in mice: study

#88

Post by ikr678 »

valianteffort wrote: post #31
cypherpunks01 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's already thought that there's an association between naturally occurring lithium in drinking water and decreased suicide rates: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british-journal-... I would think naturally occurring lithium in some people's water would give pretty good control conditions to do a wide study of this effect on Alzheimers as well?

The addition of flouride to tap water supply likely affects brain development. Let's not go adding lithium too. These things are simple enough to advise the populace to use on their own. The government should never play nanny, ever.

Is advising people to wear sunscreen and not speed also nannying? If the government ultimately bears the costs of poor health of citizens, why shouldnt they embark on public health interventions to lower those costs.

Re: Lithium compound can reverse Alzheimer’s in mice: study

#89

Post by stubish »

ThinkBeat wrote: post #82

The headline in the article from Harvard says "Could Lithium Explain — and Treat — Alzheimer’s Disease?" The headline right now "Lithium Reverses Alzheimer's in Mice" Those are two quite different statements. Someone should fix that.

If you don't rewrite the headline to include 'in mice', we have to scroll past pages of people throwing shade on the study by repeating 'in mice', as if this is something new or insightful about how medical research works. Until many readers add the 'therefore not humans' fallacy in their minds.

Re: Lithium compound can reverse Alzheimer’s in mice: study

#90

Post by woeirua »

themafia wrote: post #59
kovek wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you share some sources that show this to be true?

Wild mice do not get AD. Even if you let them achieve old age they do not develop the same brain plaques or tangles that are linked to Alzheimers. Even if they did you'd have to run huge samples then do post testing necropsies to see which mice had AD which which didn't, then filter your data, then try to find results in what remains. Otherwise you can inject the mice with a chemical known to cause AD, which is not r…

If you believe the paper, the authors were able to create symptoms and plaques similar to AD just by reducing lithium levels in the diet of these mice.
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