The study has prompted calls for further research into the possibility of adding lithium to drinking supplies – like water fluoridation to improve dental health.
Researchers at Oita University in Japan measured natural lithium levels in tap water in 18 communities in the surrounding region of southern Japan. The researchers then calculated the suicide rate in each of the 18 areas. They found that the suicide rate was significantly lower in those areas with the highest levels of lithium in the water. Writing in the British Journal of Psychiatry, the researchers said: “Our study suggests that very low levels of lithium in drinking water can lower the risk of suicide. Very low levels may possess an anti-suicidal effect.”
Lithium is a naturally occurring metal found in variable amounts in food and water. In medicine, very high doses are used to treat bipolar disorder and mood disorders. But so far the potential benefit of using low levels of lithium to reduce the risk of suicide has not been studied closely. Professor Allan Young, a Vancouver-based psychiatrist, has described the study as “intriguing”. Professor Young said: “A logical first step would be for the Medical Research Council to convene an expert working party to examine the available evidence and suggest further research.
“Large-scale trials involving the addition of lithium to drinking water supplies may then be feasible, although this would undoubtedly be subject to considerable debate. Following up on these findings will not be straightforward or inexpensive, but the eventual benefits for community mental health may be considerable.”
Jeebus … Am I going to have to start distilling my tap water?
Why don’t they just add Soma and be done with it? or Prozium.
God willing, we will prevail, in peace and freedom from fear, and in true health, through the purity and essence of our natural… fluids. God bless you all…
My advice – whisky and distilled rain water
[I agree… but hold the distilled rain water. – ed.]
I’m one of the unlucky bastards who have in the past taken high doses of the stuff to help me manage bipolar. And it DOES help, if by help you mean “turns you into a zombie incapable of any clear thoughts”. So by that standard its exactly what any government would want for their populace.
I took the stuff for a while, then missed a few doses and all of a sudden I found I could think better and wasn’t seeing the world through pink cotton wool when it had left my system.
Now sure, these were high doses and what is being proposed here are very low ones, but I’m never going to let any of that shit into me ever again.
Bring it on!
If we tried that here, lobbyists would make sure we used a non-generic.
And it would be real easy to get into the water supply, too — as long as your water supply was controlled by the government.
Just legalize marijuana and you get the same results.
You know this reminds me of a stephen king short story, where this scientist found this certain type of water that would cause people to get along with each other.
Thinking this is a great idea, he uses a volcano (that made me chuckle) to add the water to all the drinking water on the planet. Soon their is world peace.
However being that this is king, it soon found that while the water makes everyone get along, it also causes mental problems, and eventually death. Classic end of the world story.
This is the sort of thing that tipped Jack T Ripper over the edge.
Makes sense – after all, Lithium is incredibly plentiful, and has no other useful applications, so we can afford to add tons of it to the water supply. Right?
It will never happen.
Imagine the implications of allowing a mood-altering drug into the water supply indiscriminately medicating every person in an entire nation.
What’s next??
#14 A mood altering drug has already been inserted into the public news media indiscriminately giving soft lobotomies . It’s called FoxNews.
I miss Walter Cronkite 🙁
Zybeh,
I totally agree. I took it for 20 years and have a hazy memory of raising my daughter. Also I was mis-diagnosed as a light bipolar when really a bp1. Thank God lamictal is here.
There is a town of 50,000 people where a 1970’s study showed that people who had been raised in the area and who had moved aaway developed emotional problems above the norm.
(a large lithium mine is nearby)
I see Scientologists having real problems with this.
I took lithium and was charged with a salt and battery.
(shoot me)
Miranda!
Take two lithium batteries and call me if you survive the night.
#16 — link?
Would it help if we dumped this stuff in the water supplies in Afghanistan and Pakistan?
Cronkite was a leftist ***** whose leanings weren’t known until well after his time was up. He was as much a ‘news shaper’ as any of them. Just report the news and be off, I say.
As for putting stuff in water, hmm. We have way too much contamination in the environment. Look at the amount of female hormones (estrogen) put into the meat supply and elsewhere. That’s already having noticeable effects.
Not gonna happen. The teratogenic effects of lithium are well-known so we’d see an increase in birth defects – a cardiac condition – IIRC.
Also, it would add to out already heavy society. Lithium makes you hungry. Overeating makes youfat. Being fat cause: hypertension, cardiac disease, diabetes and those raise the cost of health care and make you buy more insulin and beta blockers and… Okay. Maybe they WILL add lithium to the water…
El Paso reportedly has a high level of natural lithium in its water supply that supposedly had a calming effect on the population. I lived there for several years and it was a fairly peaceful place to live. So maybe.
Beats Obama science advisor Holdren’s idea to put sterilants in the water to keep the untermenchen from breeding.
Fascists always have the best dreams.
Wow!
earlwallace raised a good point. What if developing children have their brain chemistry permanently altered because they developed with Lithium in their water?
Would they be dependent the rest of their lives?
Lithium’s nothing…
When I was a kid they used to put lead in the gasoline, which later became so concentrated in the air that urban zoo animals started dying from it. Now, that’ll permanently alter your brain. In fact I often wonder just how much stupider we all got in the name of fossil fuels.
We’re already being exposed to all sorts of drugs, and probably have been over an extended period of time.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-03-10-drugs-tap-water_N.htm
#4, Zybch,
And it DOES help, if by help you mean “turns you into a zombie incapable of any clear thoughts”.
Bullshit. Lithium is not a psychotropic drug. It doesn’t put you into an altered state. There are several psychotropic drugs that do alter your state and some are used in very heavy doses for very ill people.
On the bright side though, it has been reported that lithium may reduce herpes outbreaks. If anything, that should help your depression.
Just put cyanide in the water and be done with it. The whole human race is nothing but complete and utter garbage anyway.
“Crazy Smart said:
Would it help if we dumped this stuff in the water supplies in Afghanistan and Pakistan?”
Sure would help the Hoppities there to chill out, I think.
Hoppity- my term. Any one of a number of excitable, possibly violent and zealous people of the non-white variety. I sure hope that word catches on.