Lithium in water 'curbs suicide' | Hacker News Reader

Lithium in water 'curbs suicide'

news.bbc.co.uk

18 pointssoundsop17 comments

If I want psychoactive chemicals in my beverage, I'll get them from coffee, not tap water, thanks very much.

There are already, and there have always been, many psychoactive chemicals in any food or drink.

Lots of mood changes are due to a _lack_ of minerals in food. I had a pretty bad bout of feeling tired in high school, and it turned out to be at least in part lack of Calcium.

The BBC report mentions studies with similar results in 1980s. I remember them from my grad school days in 1970s.

However... note that these are epidemiological studies, and demonstrated (as I recall) that bipolar (aka manic-depressive) depressive illness is lower in areas of U.S. with higher natural lithium.

Even if it could be demonstrated that lithium-ingestion in water did reduce incidence of bipolar illness, this would not be expected to improve depression among those with the more common, uni-polar depression:: There has never been evidence that lithium is a "mood enhancer" or "psychoactive" - only that deficiencies of lithium may bring out or aggravate latent bipolar depressive illness. — A (non-clinical) psychology Ph.D.

Study short report here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/14828519/

While I also have reservations about dosing the water supply, I don't think flouride is such a bad thing; and the study suggests that micro-doses as described seem to reduce the rate of suicide by up to a third, which is nothing to sneeze at.

Some illness and suffering is caused by modern life an technology (on a personal level, I think our emphasis on getting up early and minimizing the amount of sleep we need is a very bad thing). While it needs a lot of further study, I wonder if rather than looking at something like this as a prophylactic, we should ask if it isn't rectifying an induced deficiency.

I was skeptical when the article didn't mention any numbers, and even more skeptical when the report's summary didn't mention them. But then I saw this graph, and I'm really kind of surprised at how big of an effect tiny amounts of lithium actually had:

http://dustincurtis.com/screenshots/Lithium_levels_in_drinki...

It would be worthwhile here to read the article by Peter Norvig, director of research at Google, on how to interpret scientific research.

http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html

Lithium's mechanism of action in patients who take it as a prescribed medication is not well understood, and it would take a great deal of follow-up to see if this epidemiological study is verified, especially as to its effect size reported here.

Re: the comment about unipolar versus bipolar depression posted earlier, the suicide risk is much higher for bipolar depression (it is highest for the pattern of mood called bipolar II), so reducing bipolar mood variation would seem to have great promise for reducing completed suicide.

I've heard that the soft drink 7-up once contained lithium among its ingredients. I don't think it's a good idea to add lithium to drinking water because of its toxicity, but I don't see anything intrinsically wrong with adding chemicals psychoactive or not to the drinking water for the purposes of public health. If it is permissible to add fluoride to water to improve the average smile, I don't see how one could object to adding a chemical to improve the average mood. (provided that the chemical was otherwise harmless)

Speaking of lithium in water...

If you ever go through Ashland, Oregon (you're driving north/south on I-5 for instance), be sure to visit here for a nice break:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithia_Park

It's a popular prank to bring visitors to the park and let them sample the water, which is really wretched.

Why stop at Lithium? Surely a more comprehensive solution to mood disorders in the population would be to add prozac into the water supply.

This makes me think of the movie Equilibrium -- a futuristic dystopia where the people are forcefully placated via drugs:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0238380/

It's already there - it doesn't break down completely in the digestive tract and some of it gets flushed out with the urine, which, well, sooner or later ends up in the water supply.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3545684.stm

There is an obvious stopping point provided by the concentrations that naturally occur in water drunk by large populations. If chemical X occurs naturally at varying concentrations one can interpret poor health in areas of low concentration as suggesting that it is an essential mineral and that a little should be added where the naturally occuring concentration is low.

Conversely, if high concentrations are linked with poor health that suggests it is toxic and water treatment in areas with high concentrations should seek to remove some of it.

If however the concentration in question does not already occur naturally in water drunk by large populations, you lack the vital data on the consequences of low-level, life time exposure. You are basically stuck and should leave well alone.

Man doesn't consume vitamines and trace elements in the optimal amounts. They never did, but as we gain enough understanding of the interactions, we can amend that problem and make for healthier, happier humans. I see no reason why we shouldn't, provided that the criterion 'enough understanding' is met.

The problem is the definition of 'healthier, happier humans'. Who gets to decide? Some people would be keen ensure 'healthier, happier humans' == compliant slaves.

In practice there usually isn't a problem when making these sorts of decisions, because the decision requires popular support. If adding lithium reduces suicides by a factor of three, probably adds to the general, measureable, happiness of many more and is shown not to have any adverse 'side effects', including effects like 'being less critical when appraising opinions of authority figures' (which is a sort of effect that likely would be investigated, as a natural part of investigating the mind altering qualities of adding lithium to the water) then almost everyone would decide in favor of adding the substance.

I'm not one to break house rules, but sometimes it is necessary. So why did my comment get down voted? Assuming it wasn't a slip of the click etc you have to conclude it was a deliberate decision by someone who didn't _like_ what I said. I don't know what it was in my comment that gave offence to you, guy, but fact #1 is you shouldn't be in charge of our water supply. QED. :)

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