Could low-dose lithium treat long COVID? UB launches clinical trial to find out

[cheeseater]

In such a poorly constructed study the mental health aspect could totally skew the results. The "low dose" amount is still a significant amount, vastly higher that the known background levels that have historically been shown to be significant enough to lesssen mental health problems in regions with lithium in the water supply.

So going back to my original comment about being curious how they are selecting participants...

If they do not completely filter out participants with any traces of mental health, the results will be skewed.
There is no lab result you can check for to see if CFS is any better. It is completely by how the person feels.

 

[MeMeMe]

If there is some evidence that lithium can play a role in autophagy, and a “healthy” autophagic function is key in ME, that’s a positive in my book and something to go on. That doesn’t mean I’m going to rush out and buy lithium. It just offers another potential clue. Obviously the person I mentioned is just one case but I think it’s interesting that he was taking lithium (don’t know the dose or treatment target, sounded like it was one of many things being tried for ME and not a mental health issue) and after adding rapa went into remission. I’m not commenting on the design of any study per se.

 

[jaybee00]

"don’t know the dose"

His dose is 300 mg/day lithium

 

[cheeseater]

Here is one showing anti-inflammation (better autophagy) with rapamycin and metformin.
https://www.healthrising.org/blog/2...itochondrial-cleanup-chronic_chronic_fatigue/

The number of studies one could do and show the same thing are endless. I propose that penicillin and saw palmetto would perform just as well, in a well done study.

 

[JES]

Lithium carbonate comes in 300 mg tablets in my country (india)
How author used 10 mg for long covid?
It's impossible to break it into 30 parts.

Sorry i don't have that much knowledge

Can anyone please chime in?

Yes, the dosage used in the study appears to be 10 mg according to Reddit and some other sources. This is most likely elemental lithium as that's the amount you will find in some lithium orotate supplements. Your lithium carbonate 300 mg tablets contain about 60 mg elemental lithium. As per what I posted earlier:

Lithium carbonate is typically prescribed at doses of 900-1800 mg/day. This would give you about 170-340 mg of elemental lithium.
Low-dose lithium, also known as sub-therapeutic doses, is when lithium carbonate is prescribed at about 150 mg/day (around 29 mg of elemental lithium).
Lithium orotate usually contains only 5 mg of elemental lithium per dose. This is the typical supplemental dosage.

So the dosage used in this study appears to be on the low end of this spectrum, which is good news regarding side effects. Then again, it's quite a bit less than the 300 mg number (or 60 mg elemental lithium) mentioned here, so one wonders if it would really do much.

 

[Hip]

Chemical pathways of nearly all anti-psychotics and old and new anti-depressants and valproic acid and thorazine and lithium are all fundamentally identical.

The chemical pathways of all antidepressants and antipsychotics are the same? I don't think so. There are many classes of antidepressant, and each class works in its own way.

Some antidepressants target the dopamine system, others serotonin, and still others noradrenaline. Some target more than one neurotransmitter system. And the way they stoke up these neurotransmitter systems is different: some antidepressants directly activate the neurotransmitter receptors, while others inhibit the breakdown of the neurotransmitter.

As for antipsychotics, the third generation of antipsychotics work in a unique way, as dopamine system stabilisers. The antipsychotics that can be helpful for ME/CFS, Abilify and amisulpride, are 3rd generation. And 1st and 2nd generation antipsychotic have differences too.

All these different drugs are not "fundamentally identical".