Low-Dose Lithium For Brain Health

Lithium is one of those molecules most people think they understand, until you zoom out. Yes, it’s a time-tested medication for bipolar disorder. But at tiny, trace doses, lithium starts to look like something else entirely: a potential micronutrient with outsized influence on mood stability, inflammation, and brain ageing.

We walk through why interest in low-dose lithium is rising in the brain health and longevity world, even as human clinical trials are still early. John and I talk about what lithium is chemically, why it’s so bioavailable, how it crosses the blood-brain barrier, and why the kidneys matter more at prescription doses than at supplement-scale milligrams. Then we connect the dots on mechanisms people care about most for neuroprotection: GSK-3 inhibition, support for BDNF, a tilt toward calming inhibitory signalling (GABA), better balance in serotonin pathways, and less glutamate-driven mitochondrial stress.

We also wrestle with the bigger public health angle: what happens when we treat chronic disease as “too much of everything” and ignore deficiency and nourishment. Soil mineral depletion, variable food mineral content, and strong population associations with lithium in drinking water (including mental health measures and Alzheimer’s mortality) make this a conversation worth having, carefully and objectively.

For slides and open-source references: www.thehealthedgepodcast.com

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Transcript

Welcome And Why Lithium Now

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Health Edge, translating the science of self-care. I am Mark Pettis with my friend and colleague, John Bagnulo. John, good morning, my friend. Good morning, Mark. It's great to see you, buddy. Great to see you as always. We've been looking at some research, John, on lithium and the sort of growing interest in lithium as a supplement in a lot of what is being looked at now to offer potential uh protection in the brain, specifically. Uh and uh you know, lithium has been around for many, many, many years, and I think most uh people uh know lithium through its effectiveness in the treatment of bipolar disease. And in 2026, lithium continues to be one of the most time-tested and effective interventions for uh bipolar disease, and it's been a huge quality of life uh benefit for so many by dealing with that. Um but here when you look at lithium in very small doses, nothing, a fraction of what you would use to treat bipolar disease, uh it has a lot of really interesting effects. And uh so it seemed like a timely topic as more people I think are hearing about the potential utilization of lithium in the aging longevity research, uh in the brain health research. And so uh we have a few recent papers, a few recent reviews that look at the mechanisms, why it is that lithium may provide benefit. And uh uh while the clinical human trials I think are very uh limited at this point in time, I think we're gonna see an explosion uh of this. And so uh yeah, that

Nutrient Gaps And The Triage Theory

SPEAKER_01 2:05

it's a good topic to review, John.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Yeah, it is. And you know, a few things come to mind when we discuss lithium. I'm first I'd say that like it was it was like at least 20 years ago that I first heard you recommend lithium uh orthotate, I think at like 0.5 milligrams per day. And I you were way ahead of the curve with this, Mark. Uh, and I and I think it I think it also serves as an example of how much we don't know about the nutrients and the molecules that the body requires for optimal function. And people like Bruce Ames, you know, who who developed this triage theory where the body will substitute, uh, in this case, a trace mineral, we might substitute a different trace mineral in for lithium to drive a particular enzyme or to work in a particular biochemical pathway, even though it's not ideal. It's not the first choice. And I think there's some evidence that the body does that. If we don't have adequate lithium, we substitute another trace mineral in place of lithium, but things don't work quite as well. You have a little more inflammation, you're a little less effective at clearing in neurological uh issues that we'll get into in a moment, inflammation-based, of course. So, you know, I think there's a lot of things come to mind with lithium, but I think it's something that we're, to your point, we're gaining greater and greater insight because now we see the mechanisms for how it works for the body, the important roles it plays neurologically is more than anywhere else. And we're starting to see these kind of big picture associations with lithium concentrations in an individual's body, and then how their physiology reflects that, whether it's, you know, again, their risk for Alzheimer's, whether it's in terms of behavioral mood disorders. I there's now a pretty big body of evidence that shows the lithium concentrations in a population's drinking water have very, very strong associations with a lot of neurodegenerative diseases in general. And it's very protective, I should say. So, you know, it's um, yeah, it's fascinating. But I I love these topics, Mark, as I know you do, because, and our listeners may or may not appreciate this like we do, but it's fascinating to see how much we don't know, right? Yeah. I'll I'll leave it at that. And this isn't, again, this isn't the only molecule. This is just the latest that we've discussed. I mean, you know, when you look at choline and how recently choline was was determined to be an essential nutrient, it just speaks volumes to the fact that we haven't figured everything out. We're actually a long ways from figuring out what we actually need for optimal health, how important soil nutrient content is for optimal health. That's a whole nother part of this topic, right? Lithium can become depleted in soils very quickly, especially the type of agricultur, especially the type of agriculture that we practice, Mark, you know, which is you know basically fertilize with what you need to to produce a plant, but it's not everything that we need for you know for our health. So, anyways, it's an awesome topic, and I can't thank you enough for uh for bringing this up today.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Absolutely. Great, great context there, John. So

What Lithium Is In Nature

SPEAKER_01 5:35

let's look at um, I'm gonna pull up some slides and we'll look at some of the studies today. These are these are more recent studies. Uh a lot of them look at the mechanisms, and like so many things that we like to review, there's some pretty uh geeky um uh biology and physiology here. But it it's not important to understand all of that as much as it is to really have uh deep respect for how a very simple molecule can exert a host of biologic effects on in humans and the extent to which many of these effects seem quite positive in a uh a molecule that's time-tested and has a um you know a pretty good uh safety profile. And again, we're talking about very low low doses here. So I I will pull up those um the slides that we have, John, and and start with um, you know, a good place to start you know to give people a sense of really what lithium is. I mean, we hear a lot about lithium in batteries, and uh, you know, lithium is sort of a hot um uh mineral because uh, you know, uh batteries and generating energy, uh particularly portable sources of energy, are so enormously important today uh that that people tend to hear more about it in that context than unless you know someone who's being treated for bipolar disease. Um here are just a few high-level bullet points. So this is the you know, if you look at a periodic table of elements, you know, lithium is up to the top of that table. This is uh uh three on the periodic table. And this atomic number, as people might recall from their painful uh sort of chemistry 101 days, uh means that the lithium has three protons. Uh the the atomic number speaks to the number of protons uh in that uh element, uh, and uh generally the number of electrons will be equal to that. So lithium has three electrons, and we often talk about John, um any element that can uh easily donate an electron uh seems to have uh more significant antioxidant, often anti-inflammatory properties. And so lithium, just looking at this, you can you you can see that its structure lends itself to easy donation of one, two, or all three of its uh electrons. And so common is that is that capacity, John, that lithium, when you see it in a paper uh or um if you're just researching it, you'll see it as Li3 ⁇ , uh uh which is what lithium is when it has donated all three of those electrons. So this is a very small, very simple molecule. Uh and it and it's highly reactive. That that's sort of the point I'm trying to make. Um uh it doesn't exist in its pure metallic form. Uh instead, it's occurs as a salt. So when you give an electron, uh you know, you are are are usually uh combining with another element uh uh that is um the recipient of that electron, and lithium then is in its salt form. Uh and uh there are two primary sources of of lithium, and some of this was was uh new to me, John. Uh these continental brines, these lithium-rich groundwater found in arid salt flats. Uh the lithium triangle referred to that rich uh area, 50% of the world's resources in uh South America, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina. Uh and then you can also find lithium in in um rocks, and uh um Australia is one of the um leading producers uh as they extract lithium from um hard rock. And nature, you know, most of what we might consume would come from the water and from the soil. And and to your point, John, we know that modern agricultural techniques very very much uh uh diminish the concentration of these minerals in soil. So the quality of our soil is not as good as it once was, and therefore the quality of those nutrients in any plant that we're consuming will not be as uh strong either. But generally we will get this from water, uh, underground geothermal wells, uh, low concentrations in drinking water. You you mentioned a study, John, and I will look at this um in a moment, of parts of the world that do have higher lithium in the drinking water. And I believe Australia is one of those countries where you do epidemiologically compared to people who have no lithium in their drinking water, will see differences in the prevalence and epidemiology of

Drinking Water Lithium And Mental Health

SPEAKER_01 11:00

mental health.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

And oh, it's amazing, Mark. It's amazing. And I looked at the studies uh that examine the relationship between, and this might not be the best time for to go into this. Um if you want to wait. No, go, John. That's all right. Yeah, well, I mean, again, a lot of times these associations kind of get thrown out. People are like, yeah, but we, you know, we don't, you know, that's an association, but you know, we we're not demonstrating cause and effect. However, as you know, at times the strength of that relationship can be such that it's hard to ignore. And I think to your point, when you look at some of the mental health parameters, uh, suicide rates, violent crimes, it's it's incredible, incredible how strong and linear the relationship is between drinking water, lithium content, and the rates of whether it's a mental health disorder, uh, a suicide rate, the the incidence of violent crimes. It appears to be like a complete inverse relationship with a Pearson's correlation coefficient, again, which just describes, for our listeners, it just describes the strength of that relationship. You start to peel away other potential variables and you start to look at how things move with higher levels of lithium and lower levels of mental health disorders. And it's really clear that there's there's something going on there in terms of its ability to stabilize mood, right? Provide people with a more balanced outlook on things. Um, and I think it goes back to at that basic chemistry level that you just went through, it just goes back to this molecule's ability to help us stabilize. Right? We could look at that on a molecular level, and we could look at that on a mood outlook type level. You know, I think we can go micro and macro with this tiny molecule. It's incredibly lightweight, right? But it it just really moves the needle in terms of brain function, neurological patterns, and brain health overall.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

No question. And um like so many things in nature that appear to have strong epidemiologic correlation and very provocative uh mechanistic data to support those epidemiologic findings, uh, you know, you do wonder uh why you don't hear more about this. And again, I I can't help but, you know, lithium again is uh something that you find in nature that that can't be patented. There's no money to be made uh lithium by big pharma. So uh the lithium that's been around for generations to treat bipolar disease, uh, you know, it's it hasn't changed, right? And it's an inexpensive um uh and and though there were some risks, close monitoring of levels, uh but you don't there's no incentive to be developing this or researching this clinically because uh uh no pharmaceutical company has to be made here. So this would fall into the category of strong potential, very little profit motive. Uh and therefore for the consumer uh understanding this is even more important because uh um and again, uh you know, there's very little lithium in the human body. Uh you know, the average human, and it's it's funny, John. I I grew up and and was trained at a time where 70 kilograms was was used and is still used as the average size of the of the American adult. It's a little outdated. We're gonna have to, yeah, probably closer to 85, 90 kilograms. Yeah, I'm gonna say it's almost like a lot of different things. But in your average person, uh, you know, you'll see seven milligrams of uh lithium. In the treatment of bipolar, often you're looking at doses between maybe 300 to 600 milligrams on the low end, up to 1200 milligrams on the high end. So um, and in supplement form, most of the studies

Low Doses Versus Bipolar Doses

SPEAKER_01 15:25

look at very small doses. Five milligrams would be typical, uh, that's what it's which is what I've been taking for some time. Uh, lithium isn't produced by the body, uh, so one might say that it's an essential trace nutrient. You have to get it from your environment. Uh most of lithium will accumulate in the brain, kidneys, and and bones. Again, this is a little bit like sodium. It's a small molecule. It can access cells relatively easily. Um and you know, you'll find small amounts in in vegetables and most of the, again, coming from the soils that they're grown in. Um, coriander leaves, tomatoes, garlic, nutmeg, cumin seeds uh uh can also be found in in onions and cauliflower, rice, mushrooms.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

Um but to your point, but but to your point, Mark, there it's largely a function of soil concentration. So it's the same story with selenium, it's the same story with chromium. Like we have a handful of foods that contain them on a consistent basis. When you get to lithium, you're really getting down to Brazil nuts, uh, you know, and that's Brazil nuts grown in Bolivia, where the soil concentrations are very high, and you're not turning that soil over and depleting it by growing one crop every year after another, right? You're you're you're harvesting Brazil nuts from trees with deep roots that are considerably older than, let's say, a plant that's grown each year and has to be cultivated from seeds. So, you know, the nuts and seeds category, I think it's important for our listeners to know it's a function of a few things. One is a lot of these nuts are grown in minerally rich soils because the trees don't do well if they don't have that. And that's why Brazil nuts are such an exceptional source of selenium. But it's only the Brazil nuts that are grown either in Bolivia or Brazil, um, the rainforest of Peru, because those soil concentrations are so high to begin with that there's just a massive reservoir there. But, you know, the point you're making here is like, you know, lithium is something that it's hard to get from food, especially conventionally grown food that's been grown in soil that has been, you know, worked and cultivated for decades. It disappears.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

Yeah, and I and it and it does make one wonder, and I'm not aware of any research looking at this, John, though there's a lot of research looking at how depletion of soil uh minerals very much impacts nutrient density of modern agriculture. But when you look at sort of the epidemiology, right, John, of mental health, and over the last generation or two, we've seen huge increases in depression, oh yeah, bipolar disease, and um cognitive challenge that that we might call um ADHD or uh you know post-traumatic stress. These are these are um hyper-excitable neurologic states. Uh and and one can wonder, you know, is it possible that uh a complete depletion of of lithium and other transminerals that we know are essential to mental health and and brain function, uh you can no longer rely on uh dietary sources. And these dietary sources tend to be plant-based, right, John? And people eat so little uh vegetables and and nuts that um you know it one could easily hypothesize that these are systemic contributors to today what we might call epidemics of mental health disease and compromised brain health. And so we know that lithium does play a critical role in protecting brain cells, mood stabilization, as you've pointed to, John. And uh, we'll look at some of the research uh addressing cognitive decline. As we said, this is an electron donor. It is a master donor uh with antioxidant properties, it promotes neuron growth, balances this symphony of neurotransmitters that we know are very uh intricately connected. Uh we know that inflammation is probably one of the major drivers of all chronic complex health issues. Certainly in the brain, it is highly uh uh associated with all degenerative neurologic diseases. And so, again, trace amounts of lithium are linked to neuroprotection. And we know that lithium also stimulates BDNF. We talk a lot about brain-derived neurotrophic factor. Uh it checks all the boxes in terms of what the brain would need for optimal plasticity, learning, memory.

GSK-3 Inhibition And Neuroprotection

SPEAKER_01 20:36

Uh, and uh, we'll look at these mechanisms, John. But one of the major players in this story the glycogen synthesis, yeah. Yes, is lithium's ability to inhibit to turn down the volume on this um uh protein, GSK3, this this um uh glucagon stimulating kinase. And uh your kinases, you know, one will read a lot about kinases, these family of enzymes that um uh attach, they they will attach phosphorus, a phosphate, to other proteins that activates them. So these are regulatory uh mechanisms, the these uh uh G proteins that sit in the cell membrane. Uh lithium uh interacts with these G proteins, the protein reconfigures its shape, which alters its function, and then you have this sequence of kinase, this sort of amplification of phosphate donation, which can unleash a whole host of intracellular biochemical pathways. And in this example, um, inhibiting GSK uh is associated with um A host of beneficial effects, including perhaps interference with these towel plaques and neurofibrillary tangles, which are commonly described in people with cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease. We know that overstimulation of GSK promotes brain inflammation. So as we'll see, inhibiting GSK has very powerful, beneficial effects. And there's some interesting research looking at lithium and bone health, fracture healing, osteoporosis, and lithium is not commonly discussed in that context. So I do think to your point, John, we're kind of at the tip of the iceberg of our understanding of how of how powerful uh a trace mineral like this can ultimately be. This is a recent research paper published in January of this year from molecular neurobiology, uh, lithium therapeutic functions, a really nice overview of many of the mechanisms, toxicity, most of which has been associated with much higher doses than what we're talking about. Uh but they looked at um really a review, and uh and this is a nice graphic from this paper, um, just sort of illustrating the bioavailability and sort of the pharmacokinetics of of lithium. So as we ingest it, uh most of it is absorbed in the small intestine. Uh, very highly bioavailable. Again, this is a simple.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

That speaks to its importance. Like that, that's very important, Mark, I think, for our listeners to understand. High bioavailability often speaks to the importance and the essentiality of a nutrient. Right? I mean, you look at sodium and you look at potassium and how how important those are and how intricately involved they are in so many body processes. They have that same bioavailability.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

Exactly. They're not going to be broken down by an acidic environment in the stomach.

SPEAKER_02 24:19

Right.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

It peaks rapidly within a few hours, complete absorption within six to eight hours, and that you know gets into your bloodstream, into your tissues, and and you know, here our focus is more on the brain. Um, so you know, CNS concentrations are about half of those in serum, uh, but can increase to as much as 75 to 80 percent. So there's very good data to support the fact that lithium will cross the blood-brain barrier. Many, many molecules will not have access to that, uh, and lithium uh does, and and the kidneys are the way in which lithium is eliminated. Uh, again, in low doses, um almost any level of kidney function will handle lithium, but in higher doses uh to treat bipolar disease, for example, some people with chronic kidney disease uh will necessitate moderating that dose because the elimination will be impaired and uh you'll have a narrower um uh uh therapeutic window. So uh lithium can easily be monitored by blood testing, so it's uh which is the other uh kind of nice attribute of lithium. You can measure blood levels, uh, you can monitor and uh adapt dosing based on those levels and based on you know side effects and how a person is doing. But when you get to the low, low levels of you know five milligrams a day, uh most of that becomes uh irrelevant.

GABA Serotonin Glutamate And Mitochondria

SPEAKER_01 26:02

And then when you you just look at these sort of uh global uh effects, and again, this is a bit uh technical, but it it speaks to the various pathways that lithium um modulates, uh, you know, and and one of the uh most important, and you alluded to this, John, is a sort of calming effect that lithium has. And and one mechanism whereby that happens is it increases uh these inhibitory levels of GABA, gamma aminobutyric acid. Uh and uh if you look at people that have PTSD or people dealing with uh depression, people dealing with uh psychosis, people dealing with um uh uh uh ADDHD, they often have very low GABA levels. They're in these chronic excitatory states. And uh, you know, spend two minutes on social media and look at how quickly someone um can get there in public can get to a place of wanting to destroy another human. You you you realize that you probably have the systemic world of inhibitory signaling. Yeah, lithium has a nice effect through GABA. And we know that it also has very beneficial effects on the serotonin system, which is um a bit oversimplified in its connection to depression and mood, but um, it's important uh clearly in enhancing uh mood cognition. Um and then when you look at the um uh the more excitatory pathways, uh, the opposite of GABA would be glutamate. Lithium inhibits uh these glutamate systems. So uh you see drops in glutamate levels, um anyway.

SPEAKER_00 28:00

Which is great for the mitochondria, because excessive glutamate, right, and excessive glutamic acid are really destructive to the mitochondria. So, you know, here this is I think where the neuroprotective component comes in with respect to mitochondrial health. Yes. And those mitochondria, as are, as you know, Mark, I mean, the the neuron is so metabolically active. I mean, the brain collectively is one of the most metabolically active organs, largely due to mitochondrial activity. And we know that as those mitochondria become compromised, it invites all the different neurodegenerative diseases, right, that have that energy crisis component. So I think this is a big, a big part of this really this amazing engine that we have inside our neurons, a neurological mitochondria, and how that engine needs to have everything just right, has to have the exact right engine oil, so to speak. It has to be high, you know, high octane fuel, has to have high viscosity oil because of how metabolically active it is. And in comes lithium, which really helps protect those those engines.

SPEAKER_01 29:07

Yeah, you really start to see how these dots connect when you look at how these pathways uh support each other. Um the PKC pathway, this is a uh one of these kinase, uh these these enzymes that uh uh transfer phosphate from one molecule to another. And these are really important pathways when you want to stimulate um cell activity, cell growth, cell division. Uh but if these pathways are overstimulated, you get that same hyper-excitatory effect. The cell's ability to adapt uh becomes compromised, mitochondrial activity, as you pointed out, John. So this has some inhibitory or down-regulation of those effects. Uh the same with this the phosphoinocetal pathway, this IP1. These are also, again, kinase-related cell signaling and regulatory pathways, these really complex regulatory enzymes that can totally change the ecosystem of that cell and the tissues that those cells compromise. And again, down regulation here has a more calming inhibitory adaptation. This would almost be like the equivalent of cellular sleep, allowing those cells to regenerate, uh, mitophagy, you know, the recycling of cell components, uh, you get out of this perpetual overdrive. Uh, and it also has that calming effect on dopamine. And we know that people with chronic stimulation of dopamine, uh, maybe through um uh addiction, uh, maybe through um uh you know certain behaviors, uh risk-taking uh behaviors that, you know, like gambling is a good example of, you know, you are just flogging your dopaminergic system. And over time, you know, that the the adaptation will be to lose your ability to uh make dopamine uh when you need it, uh, you lose your ability to uh break it down when you need to be breaking it down. And um, I think when you look at all uh degenerative neurologic diseases and many mental health, behavioral health diseases, these are the mechanistic pathways that seem to underlie mood and cognition and uh the ability to uh cultivate more resilience and the ability to adapt. And so uh this is just a really uh beautiful um overview of many of these mechanisms, right? So again, just if this were if this were a patentable uh you know, a molecule you could trademark, um you know, Big Pharma would be all over this.

SPEAKER_02 32:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:22

Uh but uh uh that's not the case here. And again, this is just another uh graphic, and I apologize for those listening to this. Um all of these slides and this the these articles, open source articles, will be on our website uh for those who want to uh do a

Inflammation Microglia And Immune Signalling

SPEAKER_01 32:40

bit more of a deep dive, and the video will be on our website as well. But again, John, right, we know that um uh all degenerative neurologic diseases, chronic stress, certainly the research that's been done in bipolar disease, that when you look at the at the brains of these individuals, you see immune stimulation, right? The microglia are the immune cells of the central nervous system. They're on overdrive. And you see this overproduction of these inflammatory uh mediators, interleukin 6 and TNF alpha, you know, the the sort of the usual suspects. Uh you see this this toll receptor activation, which is uh an immune uh system mechanism that ordinarily would allow you to recognize um uh a foreign uh threat and deal with it. Um when these receptors are overactivated, uh you may be more sensitive to certain um uh your body may react to gluten, it may react to other things um that uh it otherwise would have more tolerance to. And and again, it's a good sort of sociologic metaphor. You know, we see so little tolerance in our in our uh culture these days, right? Um so uh you need these receptors to be um uh uh balanced uh so that they know when to react and when to just observe and and tolerate. Uh we talked about the GSK activity and how these pro-inflammatory states, you see, overactivation. Uh and so lithium, as we've talked about, um inhibits all of these processes. The GSK3 diminishes uh these inflammatory uh responses, will interfere with these tau and amyloid proteins, uh, will enhance uh neuronal uh tissue to be more plastic, more adaptable. Uh and in the absence of those adaptations, right, you'll see more depression, suicide behaviors, cognitive impairment, uh which we might call moderate cognitive impairment or Alzheimer's or dementia. Um lithium has this host of beneficial effects on these pathways that are known uh to drive disease when they are not well regulated. It's a really nice slide, John. I like that.

SPEAKER_00 35:24

No, that's incredible. I'm sure you have far-reaching it is, as well as the slide before that, you know, just looking at its role, the roles it plays in so many different facets of cellular physiology. This is a good one. This is a good paper, you know.

SPEAKER_01 35:38

This is a uh uh paper

Lithium Use And Dementia Rates

SPEAKER_01 35:40

published a few years ago looking at the association between lithium use and the incidence of dementia. It was a retrospective study. So you take a group of individuals, this was done in the UK, uh, and most are on lithium in higher doses for treatment of bipolar disease or uh uh what psychiatrists might say mood stabilization, um, and then just looking over time at uh people taking lithium for those indications versus those that aren't taking it, is there a difference in uh uh the prevalence of uh dementia? And uh so the study basically, you know, we understand dementia is the leading cause of death and disability and continues to go up dramatically in Western populations. Uh we know that the um uh modern medical approaches to slowing or reversing dementia have been woefully ineffective. There have been very few, in my review of this, John, uh really innovative uh breakthroughs in this in this field. Uh so lithium uh obviously has some intriguing possibility here. So they looked at 548 individuals that were um exposed to lithium, uh, and a large number who were not taking lithium and uh over this 14, 15 year period. And again, this is data from the uh the UK. And then they looked at the incidence of dementia, uh, including uh Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia, which you typically see with hypertension and other vascular risk factors, and uh basically found that lithium was associated with a lower risk of receiving a diagnosis of dementia of any kind, uh, and both short and long term. This was interesting, John. Exposures was associated with a decreased incidence. And again, this is um retrospective correlation. Um, but um again, this is very intriguing in terms of trying to extrapolate the mechanisms that we have looked at with uh sort of a population-based um shift in uh prevalence incidence of dementias. And again, most of these individuals uh were taking lithium for bipolar disease, uh which is known to be a risk factor for dementia.

SPEAKER_00 38:24

Exactly. Exactly. I think if anything, it strengthens the it strengthens the results here.

SPEAKER_01 38:30

Exactly. Yeah uh we know that all of these um we we might call them separate diseases, but uh depression frequently will coexist with dementia. Uh and so uh all of the pathways that we've looked at are shared by all these neurologic

Trace Lithium And Alzheimer Mortality

SPEAKER_01 38:50

and behavioral health uh clinical diagnoses. And I think this might be the last slide, John. Um looking at, and you you brought this up earlier on, some of the the initial observations of lithium and its brain protection uh looked at the relationship between trace lithium in drinking water and the rates of uh age-adjusted Alzheimer's disease mortality in Texas. The study was published in 2017, and this is a graphic which shows uh changes in age-related uh mortality. For those getting more lithium, and these are these are blood levels, uh virtually no lithium, uh, higher amounts of lithium, but these are nowhere near toxic levels. Uh you see dramatic uh reductions in age-related Alzheimer's mortality. Uh, and these are statistically significant um findings. Again, it's uh correlative, but uh intriguing nonetheless, right?

SPEAKER_00 40:05

Yeah, incredible stuff, and it makes sense. I mean, if you find it all the all of the things that you know went were that you presented there early on, Mark, from the one paper on physiological roles and requirements, you start to understand that it's just like vanadium and some of the other trace minerals, you know, we should absolutely have more dietary guidelines or an RDA to set forth so that it does highlight its importance. I'm gonna guess that for the average American, they only think that lithium is uh, you know, more of a medication. They don't understand that it's a that it's an essential nutrient. Uh never mind the connection of that nutrient to different pathways in the brain. So I think you know, it's it's an example, like I said at the beginning of this, of how little, I won't say like how little we know, but how little we appreciate the role of some of these molecules that might be found in certain plants as a phytonutrient, or in this case a trace mineral, which, as we know, trace minerals tend to be a little bit more widely required in the body. I just think that there's a vast underappreciation for what the soil and the contents of soil has provided to human health and is still needed. And I just think that we have to get back to that uh, you know, more ancestral appreciation for soil. And I think this is a great example of that.

SPEAKER_01 41:39

Great

Personal Use Nourishment And Closing

SPEAKER_01 41:40

summary to conclude on, John. I for anyone who's interested, I do take lithium orotate, um five milligrams a day. It costs pennies a day.

SPEAKER_00 41:52

0.5.5? Five. Five milligrams a yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:56

Five milligrams.

SPEAKER_00 41:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 41:57

Uh and um uh I I see all potential upside, uh, no significant downside. It's very affordable. I think it's we know a lot about safety profiles in lithium. It it is one uh uh mineral in pharmacologic doses for which there is a ton of data. These are these we're talking about very, very low uh toxicity risk. And um uh so yeah, you know, it I think we're gonna see a lot more research here, John, but it in the category of low-hanging fruit and uh more upside than downside, and something that won't give you sticker shock. Um it, you know, that's the the personal uh assessment I've made right now. And and you know, we'll see. I'm also an Apo E carrier. Um, I have the APO4-3, um, it's a heterozygous, which uh, you know uh puts me at an increased risk of of dementia. And so I'm uh have a bit more personal interest than anything I can do to maybe neutralize that risk. And um and we've we've talked about other uh I I eat a lot of red meat, John. And I come back to a recent uh podcast as we looked at unprocessed red meat and how that seems to be associated with reductions. And so uh brain health is just such a huge issue. And and when you bring mental health into that category of brain health, I mean it is this is the um it is the bullseye and the target of public health. And so uh I I hopefully we'll see more research, but again, uh um it won't be from big pharma.

SPEAKER_00 43:52

No, and it and again, I just you know, in conclusion, I think that the perspective has been for the last 40 or 50 years, whether it's with respect. To heart disease, you know, whether it's now, you know, in more recent years with respect to brain health, there's this perspective, and it's unfortunate that it is as pervasive as it is, that everything we we experience in the way of diseases or disease processes is due to excess of whatever it is, XYZ. And don't get me wrong, there's there's strong evidence that excess sugar, excess refined carbohydrates are, you know, they play pivotal roles in all of these disease processes. But the part that I feel is still missing, Mark, or has been lost for the last, you could go back to the Hansel Keys, some of those messages, right? The part that's been lost is that so many of these diseases are not due to excesses, but deficiencies. And I think there's, you know, again, there's massive amounts of evidence that when you get into Alzheimer's, you get into neurodegenerative diseases, you look at heart disease, a deficiency in any particular micronutrient sets you up for a disease process. And I think lithium is a great example of that, of how so many people are deficient. It's not even on their radar, it's not on their clinician's radar, it's nothing they ever read about. Um, and so that's never highlighted in terms of its importance. But we have to be nourished first and foremost for the body to handle all of the different things that come at us, right? All of the different challenges that are going to be part of life, whether it's exercise, whether it's stress, whatever it is, the body needs, it needs nutrients, it needs a certain level or concentration, cellular concentration for everything. And here's an example of one where if you're deficient, you lose all of those different pathways or the possibilities for those to help stabilize, buffer us against uh stressors. So I always say nourishment, the concept of nourishment, Mark, has been lost. It's been completely lost. Yeah. And everything's fear-based. Nutrition is all fear-based now. It's like, don't eat this, don't eat that, don't eat this. And people aren't, you know, people are afraid to eat eggs. People are afraid to eat the most nourishing foods, the red meat that you just brought up, and in how much that contributes zinc and starts to create the balance between zinc and copper that a lot of people have lost, especially people that eat entirely plant-based diets. Most of those individuals have massive amounts of copper and very little zinc physiologically, and that sets us up for a host of problems. And I think lithium really falls in this category of we've lost our way with respect to the importance of nourishment. And that's like a foundation to all ancestral, all ancestral goals were to first be nourished. So I look at lithium as is a prime example of that.

SPEAKER_01 46:54

Great note to end on, John. Thank you for that. And uh we appreciate people tuning in to the Health Edge podcast. We are most grateful for you and appreciate your interest. And if this is content that you think uh might be helpful uh for those you love, for friends, uh maybe in the in the work that you do, please feel free to share. Nothing that John and I have on our site is copyright protected. We you know, we have this open source philosophy, it's just about sharing information that hopefully is reasonably objective and current. And um so thank you. Uh, all of this can be found on the healthedgepodcast.com. And John, I hope to see you next week if absolutely, absolutely, I look forward to it.

SPEAKER_00 47:48

All right, brother. Love you, man. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 47:51

Love you too.