"A recently discovered environmental health problem of potential public health relevance is the presence of elevated concentrations of lithium in drinking water []. Lithium has been suggested to be essential for humans [], however, the evidence is weak. On the other hand, lithium exposure has been associated with impaired thyroid function in women [], including pregnant women [], in northern Argentina, where the lithium concentrations in drinking water range 5–1660μg/L. Lithium readily crosses the placenta [] and an inverse association between maternal blood lithium concentrations during pregnancy and birth length has also been observed []. Lithium has long been used in the treatment of bipolar disease[]. The side effects of lithium therapy include impaired calcium homeostasis, often as hyperparathyroidism []. Whether lithium in drinking water can have similar effects in the general population is not known. The calcium homeostasis is strictly regulated because of calcium's important role in bone formation, intracellular signaling and muscle contraction." (citations [] omitted)
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26828622 / http://www.sverigesnatur.org/app/uploads/2017/10/li-and-ca-h... (quote from the intro in this pdf)
Lithium, Sodium and Potassium are in Group 1:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodic_table#/media/File:Sim...
Calcium and Magnesium are in Group 2.
Adequate salts are vary important to health. I'd rather have adequate Na, K, Ca, and Mg than supplemental Li.
tl/dr: I drink salted orange juice (K), eat salted potatoes (K), add salt to my dairy products (Ca and K), and salt my green vegetables (Mg).
Drugging people with Lithium is an intervention done on the basis of "we don't know why it sometimes works, but it seems to sometimes help, so we might as well try it, and if the patient complains their opinion doesn't actually matter."