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Comment by univalent | Hacker News Reader

I read an interesting paper a few years back showing a correlation between low(er) rates of depression in population areas with high(er) lithium content in their drinking water. The paper also discussed how big pharma had pushed doctors away from Li over the years towards more expensive drugs.

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Lithium salts is most commonly prescribed to moderate mood, caveat being your blood levels have to be heavily monitored to prevent adverse effects.

Lithium is quite dangerous, though. The quantities have to be pretty exact and injected with syringe, if I remember correctly, which means a doctor will have to do it for you. Every time. That's obviously problematic.

Lithium salts are most commonly prescribed in pill form. Their therapeutic range is quite narrow, and the toxic range follows quickly beyond that, so blood levels need to be monitored on a regular basis.

Lithium's really only useful if you're treating bipolar depression. It has mood stabilizing properties, and giving lithium to a non-bipolar patient will "flatten" their moods.

Disagree. I've tried low doses of lithium orotate and it had positive effects on my mood. I don't think it's inherently mood-lifting, but it lowered my anxiety by a huge margin. It was very noticeable. Suddenly, I could be around in public and not worry at all what people might think about me. Anxiety can be like chronic pain, over time, it wears you down, and can lead to depression.

You know, it can be very difficult to tell the difference between Bipolar II and unipolar depression because the manic phases are so muted and short. Food for thought. :-)

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