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Anyone tried lithium?

Messages
59
I've tried supplementing all the minerals including the trace ones, except for lithium. I guess due to the stigma attached to it. Out of all the supplements I have tried, copper has had the most effect on my symptoms but that is a mixed bag itself. Anyway I'm considering trying lithium, I guess just to see how it effects me.
 

sregan

Senior Member
Messages
703
Location
Southeast
I've tried supplementing all the minerals including the trace ones, except for lithium. I guess due to the stigma attached to it. Out of all the supplements I have tried, copper has had the most effect on my symptoms but that is a mixed bag itself. Anyway I'm considering trying lithium, I guess just to see how it effects me.

Lithium is a natural salt not a drug. Most here take like 5 mg. The therapeutic doses used in medicine is 200mg and upwards. You'll hardly notice anything. Supposed to help methylation by getting the mfolate into the cells.
 

PeterPositive

Senior Member
Messages
1,426
Lithium is a natural salt not a drug. Most here take like 5 mg. The therapeutic doses used in medicine is 200mg and upwards. You'll hardly notice anything. Supposed to help methylation by getting the mfolate into the cells.
The 5mg refers to elemental Li in the typical Lithium Orotate supplement. The 200mg or more usually refer to Lithium carbonate which is not absorbed very well, requires higher doses and it's not directly comparable to Orotate.

After having read several articles I've come to the conclusion that 5mg is already a pretty high dose, especially long term, unless you have specific deficiencies. One could start with 1-2mg, see how it goes, maybe push it higher if there's no side effects.

I have started taking 2mg of Li chloride, but I have had a stomach flu and I stopped several supplements to give the gut some rest.

I will report when I'll start again.
 

Critterina

Senior Member
Messages
1,238
Location
Arizona, USA
I take it (5 mg Li Orotate) and noticed an upswing in my mood. I ran out and after two weeks noticed that my mood was no longer improved. I started again and noticed a smaller effect, but I plan to keep taking it.

I am not endorsing NutraHacker, but I want to say that I did run my 23andMe results through them, and of my "top 100" mutations, 10 of them suggested I may need lithium. I have been clinically depressed at least twice and needed medication (not lithium) once. Without that history, my NutraHacker result and the studies of lithium in drinking water (and a few percent of what I'm taking) published in the New York Times, I probably wouldn't have tried it. I would suggest that others would likely NOT have the same result as me.
 

melamine

Senior Member
Messages
341
Location
Upstate NY
There is a small, non-specified amount of lithium in the Yasko All In One multi I take in addition to 1/4 to 1/2 of a 5mg lithium orotate, both of which I started taking several months ago. I don't know if lithium itself has had any effect because there have been too many other factors, but nothing negative to report.
 

ahmo

Senior Member
Messages
4,805
Location
Northcoast NSW, Australia
I started Li orotate at 5mg per Amy Yasko's suggestion re stabilizing mood. Immediately I found that I no longer burst into tears at every tragic story. Others have written that it helps w/ B12 absorption or assimilation, but I don't know that science. I now tend to take 10mg every day or 2, according to my body self-testing. I've been in a heavy detox period, maybe it'll go back to 5 mg when I finish this phase.
 
Messages
76
Location
Southwest
I also take Lithium Orotate (Advanced Research/about 2.5 mg./day). I find it a mood brightener. I have logged the effects for four months now.

I've read that it is useful for helping MethylB12 get into cells. If there is a test for monitoring this effect I have not heard of it, but would be interested in it.

Yasko has a webcast on Lithium and various SNPs. I think lithium supplementation is helpful for those with COMT mutatations, and she affirms in her patients that "those with SHMT and/or MTR/MTRR mutations tend to excrete a lot of lithium in urine tests. That's why she recommends it to these patients. And anyone with a great need for B12 according to their SNPs should be on a low-dose lithium because it helps B12 to be transported to the blood cells." (I didn't record my source for this quote---it might be from her webcast on Lithium???)

I like some of Ray Peats thoughts about lithium:

"Chronic consumption of lithium blocks the release of adrenalin from the adrenal glands, and it also has extensive antiserotonin effects, inhibiting its release from some sites, and blocking its actions at others.
Lithium forms a complex with the ammonia molecule, and since the ammonia molecule mimics the effects of serotonin, especially in fatigue, this could be involved in lithium’s antiserotonergic effects. Ammonia, like serotonin, impairs mitochondrial energy production (at a minimum, it uses energy in being converted to urea), so anti-ammonia, anti-serotonin agents make more energy available for adaptation. Lithium has been demonstrated to restore the energy metabolism of mitochondria (Gulidova, 1977).
Therapies that have been successful in treating “schizophrenia” include penicillin, sleep therapy, hyperbaric oxygen, carbon dioxide therapy, thyroid, acetazolamide, lithium and vitamins. These all make fundamental contributions to the restoration of biological energy. Antibiotics, for example, lower endotoxin formation in the intestine, protect against the induction by endotoxin of serotonin, histamine, estrogen, and cortisol. Acetazolamide causes the tissues to retain carbon dioxide, and increased carbon dioxide acidifies cells, preventing serotonin secretion." (Peat, "Thyroid, insomnia, and the insanities: Commonalities in disease: Some factors in stress, insomnia, and the brain syndrome")

I've also noticed that taking Lithium Orotate regularly has quashed the "adrenaline surges" that I have had for the last decade.

Cheers,
Silverseas2014

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