Lithium in drinking water lowers the suicide rate

Lower suicide rate due to lithium in drinking water

03/06/2011

Already the small amounts of lithium in drinking water can significantly reduce the suicide rate in the population, scientists from the University of Vienna report in the May issue of the specialist journal „British Journal of Psychiatry“. The researchers had compared the number of suicides in 99 Austrian districts with the local lithium content of the drinking water. The result: With increasing lithium content of drinking water, the suicide rate in the population decreased.

As a micronutrient in drinking water, lithium contributes to significantly reducing the suicide rate in the population, according to the research team led by Dr. Ing. Nestor Kapusta from the University Clinic for Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy of the University of Vienna. For the first time, a scientifically reliable proof of the positive effect of the trace element contained in the drinking water on the human psyche has been achieved. Kapusta.

High lithium content in drinking water lowers the suicide rate
As part of the study on the effects of lithium on the suicide rate in the population, the researchers took 6,460 drinking water samples in 99 Austrian districts and compared them with local suicide rates. The result was clear: the higher the lithium value in drinking water, the lower the suicide rate, the researchers write. The effect was also confirmed when other socioeconomic factors that could influence the rate (such as income levels) were included. Kapusta and colleagues continue. That lithium has a positive effect on the psyche has long been known in the art and in psychotherapy, lithium-containing preparations are used, for example, for the treatment of bipolar affect disorders, mania and depression. Even with the extremely painful so-called cluster headache occasionally lithium-containing medicines are used. However, the doses of lithium in the previous therapeutic use was usually about a hundred times higher than the natural occurrence in drinking water, said the scientists of the University of Vienna. Apparently, even such small amounts of lithium can have positive effects on health and psyche.

In the future, enrich drinking water with lithium?
„The fascinating and the new“ The current study results, according to Dr. Kapusta, „that lithium could already have measurable effects on human health as a trace element even in natural amounts.“ However, stay „It is completely unclear how natural lithium in drinking water exerts such a strong physiological effect, even though it is, so to speak, dosed 100 times less“ as in the previous therapeutic use. Here, according to the Austrian experts, there are some new and exciting questions about how the mechanism works. However, the researchers expressly warn against enriching the drinking water with lithium based on the new findings in order to reduce suicides. „Clinical trials and methodically-intensive cohort studies are needed to make such a recommendation“, stressed Kapusta. For example, the question of possible side effects remains unclear. According to the experts, a recent study indicates that the lithium content in drinking water can cause a slight increase in thyroid levels. Thus, it can not be ruled out that higher lithium values ​​in drinking water can have negative effects on the health of the population in addition to the positive effects. „Our results are therefore intended to stimulate numerous further investigations,“ so the conclusion of Dr. Kapusta and colleagues.

Globally affects life-prolonging lithium?
A German-Japanese research team headed by Prof. dr. Michael Ristow, holder of the Department of Human Nutrition at the Institute of Nutrition Science at the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, only caused a stir in February with the results of the study that the inclusion of the trace element lithium generally extends life. In the online edition of the specialist magazine „European Journal of Nutrition“ The researchers reported that two independent studies have found that even low-level lithium uptake is life-prolonging in both the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans and humans. The researchers analyzed the overall mortality rate in 18 Japanese communities, while simultaneously recording the respective lithium content of tap water. At the same time Dr. Ristow and colleagues firmly, „that the mortality rate in municipalities is significantly lower, in which more lithium is present in tap water“. Also in the second experiment, in which the effect of the lithium contained in drinking water was examined on the model organism of the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans, research results have been confirmed, explained the nutritionists. (Fp)

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Picture: Paul Golla