Harvard study suggests that low metal levels contribute to cognitive decline
A group of Harvard University researchers in the United States shows that human brain tissue analyzes and mice tests revealed a pattern: when lithium levels in the brain fall, signs of memory loss and typical Alzheimer’s marks, such as amiloid plates and tau tangers.
Research has brought evidence in animal experiments that a specific type of lithium supplement can reverse these changes, recover memory, and give back to the brain a younger and healthier functioning.
Professor Orestes Vicente Forlenza, head of the Department of Psychiatry, USP School of Medicine (University of São Paulo) and researcher in geriatric psychiatry and neurosciences, explains: “Lithium is considered a medicine that treats some mental diseases and neuropsychiatric disorders, and more recently it has been placed as a possible neuroprotective agent and capable of modifying some processes related to certain neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease”.
Lithium in the water
Forlenza says lithium fulfills different functions in the brain: “A few years ago, epidemiological studies done in European countries, such as Denmark, and also in North America have shown that the concentration of lithium in water table water is inversely associated with the occurrence of Alzheimer’s disease. That is, the higher the lithium content in the water of the water table, the lower the [incidência da] Alzheimer’s disease”.
According to the teacher, research that relates Alzheimer’s level with lithium in water aligns with recent study on lithium efficiency in the fight against the disease.
“This is quite consistent with the model that he [estudo de Harvard] Used, using both the post-mortem brain tissue sample, the plasma sample of these same individuals, showing that there is a lithium depression in the brains of those individuals who already have the pathological markers of Alzheimer’s disease“, it says.
When used as a form of treatment, lithium levels are in a much higher dosage than in the brains analyzed in the Harvard study, published in the scientific journal Nature. What research proposes is that there is a level that, although low, is necessary for the proper functioning of the brain.
Pathological markers
The main pathological markers of Alzheimer’s disease are the neurofibrillary amyloid and tangle plaques. In the study, laboratory analysis proves that with the removal of the lithium from the mice diet there was an acceleration in the development of these plates and tangles.
The teacher stresses clinical findings showing that among people who aged some kind of mental disorder and used lithium, there were fewer cases of Alzheimer’s and greater cognitive survival.
“These are demonstrations we have done for over 15 years, in the study of bipolar treatment here in our group, and now recently reproduced in an international casuistry of elderly bipolars, with more than 3,500 participants, showing this benefit of chronic lithium use in relation to certain functional and clinical outcomes clinicians”He declares.
The medicine of the future?
Proof that low lithium levels may have protective biological effects increases safety for its use on a larger scale, as the risk of medication toxicity is not null. Forlenza says that the study brings greater attention to the functionality of lithium, highlighting the benefits and presenting greater relevance to possible Alzheimer’s treatments using this medicine.
“This really shows incredible potential for a cheap drug that can be made available on a large scale and at smaller dosages, with proven biological effects, safety is much higher“, it says.
“We have all those elements to really position lithium as a compound with great therapeutic and protective potential, not only against Alzheimer’s disease, but [contra] Other degenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease. Some studies show benefits even in post-AVC recovery, not to mention, of course, in psychiatric diseases”He declares.
With information from .
