Also, the AMA plays right along by defining new diseases like reflux disease that used to be just “heartburn.” This means that the only cure to any given disease is what the AMA says it is, no other claims are allowed. And only big pharma can play in this league.

Whether you believe in conspiracies or not, this is what the net result is, that the FDA supports big pharma, fights against alternative treatments and ignores the American people.

So whether you

The difference is, as stated by some, in the concentration of the dose. Otherwise they are basically the same other than some slight differences in solubility and hence achievable solution concentrations.

Incidentally, for those that disagre or think it ’silly’ to say so, the USA IS way behind most of the rest of the Western World (and Eastern) in pharmaceutical technology due to the influence of the big pharma corporations on both the legistlature and the FDA. There is no debating or disputing this to the shame of the USA.

Drug research in the USA rarely gets beyond just that – research – while in Europe there is very little influence exerted on legislation by drugs companies: at least comparatively!

I would prefer to be proved wrong due to the influence of North America, but have yet to receive a coherent argument based on fact rather than patriotism.

It’s mostly a reaction to the studies coming out over the past few years into the benefits of Lithium as a tool against manic depression. So…

Then:
“Lithium will burn out your kidneys”

Now:
“Sure Lithium works, everybody knows that. But you don’t need a psychiatrist, they’re evil.”

And keep in mind the anti-psychiatrists/medications people are only two tiers away from the actual Co$. It’s the branch organizations the Co$ set up years ago, like Mindfreedom, that release these crazed statements about the evils of psychiatry, which the anti-psych blogs pick up and report on as Absolute Truth.

It’s a fantastic communications strategy. There are over a hundred different Co$ front groups that drop the press releases and gather the information the anti-shrink blogs then report on.

It really is incredible how this thing works…”

Your story of elaborate counter-cycnical cynism is incredible – go see a psychiatrist (by your logic, and take the prescription you’re given).

For more reasonble people – remember, if you have brain power, you can isolate the difference between the view points of some people and others, and don’t need to go around generalising, demonising, and then constructing straw men to win silly little arguments. Ockham’s Razor best explains why the ‘nutrient balancing’ crowd seem to be ‘anti-psychiatry’ (its actually a misperception, but anyway, since they are trying to treat chronic physical and psychiatric conditions like depression and ADHD, that derive solidly from psychiatry), the fact that not being effectively made well by years approaching the problem conventionally, without success or unacceptible side effects probably has something to do with it (sarcasm, for the less smart). If you are loyal and improve with one treatment, and not the other (‘conventional’), what is that telling us about the problems with the psychiatric diagnosis? If there is no basis to the ‘alternative’ treatment (which there frequently is) then the benefit can only be imaginary and slight – which means there was no psychiatric condition in the first place, and no psychiatric drugs are needed, only placebos and some internet messages.

According to conventional thinking. The micronutrient balance hypothesis is broadly valid for every organism – it is a central tenet that all organisms only evolve for their particular environment. The only reason why we need vitamin K, D and A is that these nutrients evolved far back in the marine food chain and remained important due to diet. If they had not been present at any point there is the evolution of other pathways. The only reason why there is tollerence for variations is because there is variations in the diet (ie resulting in other synthesis pathways and dynamic regulation over production and excretion, or storage depots, examples include the famous case of vitamin D. This is somewhat less true for other nutrients, particularly minerals like iodine and selenium and magnesium.)

The reality is always confounded by factors such as the capacity for substances to be used interchangeably, and play roles in the natural signalling and responsiveness of the organism (ie in regulation of immune cells) making many substances ’semi’ essential, in that they become increasingly so when there is less of other agents. Many nutrients have modest effects on certain parameters, but which can be substituted by increases of other nutrients. This is one problem with assessing the value of individual antioxidants, for example. It also impairs the results when control groups and treatment groups are not sufficiently different ie represent worse case population groups vs best case, since there are in reality very wide variations in health between lifestyles.

RUBBISH

The key is dose, and the impact of dose may only be apparent at multiples of a typical intake, not withstanding variations in people.

Obviously I am wrong, since prozac occurs naturally in chicken soup, and everyone acknowledges its not a drug then.

Who is this experimental chimp?

I also have to correct a statement on the relative dose of the supplemental form (orotate) – this is not wildly different to the doses provided in some of the low dose studies, but is hard to assess because of availability unknowns. Low dose lithium treatment is covered by articles in popular science magazines.

The propper position is that there is no case against lithium for supplemental purposes, but there is a case against the claims made and purpose suggested by some vendors, of the ‘lithium orotate’ form, and the data on bioavailability is insufficient.

The reason for the over-confidence on the part of vendors for this form, is that low dose lithium is promising, and alternative forms have not been available.

Lets correct a few things. People ARE NOT suggesting the use of lithium orotate, as you assert, to replace ‘regular lithium’.

“Marketing lithium orotate as a dietary supplement is clearly nonsensical and mendacious, it’s the same drug in lithium orotate as in lithium carbonate, the only possible difference is in how the drug is metabolised in the body.”

Its not mendacious or nonsensical. It is not the same drug as used in lithium carbonate mood stabilising therapy, which is orders of magnitude higher in dose. Just as with other minerals, very high dose radically alters the nature and function of the substance, allthough it may share some functions.

“It would be unwise to take pure lithium as adding lithium to water results in what chemists like to call a “brisk exothermic reaction”. To put it another way, you’d end up with no tongue.”

Nope, at a few miligrams the heat given off would be quite negligible, but in any case, the objective here is to replicate other sources of lithium in the diet. Concern over supposed toxicity is way overblown – since the epidemiology shows those in the higher percentile of intake have substantial benefits. These are NOT related to the normal very high use of lithium in mood stabilisation. The difference is that ‘therapeutic’ doses use by doctors is toxic and the levels associated with supplements or the upper natural intake are not known or suspected to be. The difference in intake is orders of magnitude, and the profile of action is distinct. What we can say for sure, is if the lithium containing molecule is broken down whilst delivering lithium in a relevant form, then it will be expected to have some influence. The difference of the effect with low dose and high dose is that high dose has unique effects and is excitotoxic, whilst ‘low dose’ lithium is already well assessed to be neuroprotective. Scientists fully acknowledge that ‘low dose lithium’ is distinct from normal uses of lithium and is a distinct concept used for different purposes, though it may, and is being tested for, the purposes of boosting the capacity to resist future psychotic episodes, when used as a lower dose preventative treatment (this is still relatively high dose). These dose ranges for the distinct ‘low dose lithium’ are considered as a tenth to a thirtieth the doses of lithium as a mood stabiliser, and it may, or may not, apply to lower dietary levels or those of this supplement. By comparisom, because the orotate molecule is large by comparisom to the lithium, dietary supplements (that are reputable) contain much lower levels again – nearly a tenth as low again as low doses that have been shown to have remarkable neuroprotective and regenerative effects (and others). This is not like homeopathic dosages, the level is still higher than the natural range in the populace, already quite strongly associated with health benefits in epidemiological studies, which are consistent with those effects found in low dose lithium studies. There us a possible concern that low dose lithium could interact in such a way as to accumulate when used with some other medications, this dose is still unlikely to be toxic, and a warning would surfice. Legitimate concerns relate to wether or not the lithium is delivered in an effective carrier, not that the dose is too high, but rather may be too low, making it at worst worthless, or that it functions like the higher intakes of lithium, thought to share an MOA with low dose lithium. At the low dose end (a lower effective dose not yet established), lithium is suggested by research to be a promising substance that at the lowest supplemental doses there is no reason to assume is ‘drug like’ rather than ‘nutrient like’, regardless of whether its effects are large (the effects of all vitamins are large, compared with deficiency states). For the ‘low dose’ effects, we cannot claim that this is a drug, and not a nutrient. The existing research is consistent with a nutrient status at low dose, and a drug status at high dose.

resco

It’s common sense that any meds…..natural or otherwise can cause major trouble if mis-used…

I have taken another anticonvulsent, lamotrigine for bipolar illness.

I can tell you from my personal experience that things are not black and white as James implies. Most people are prescribed drugs for mood disorders in very large doses when they have an acute episode, since doctors try to rapidly bring it under control. This is like hitting the person with a big hammer. Yes the acute problem may be reversed, but often the mood overshoots in the other direction. The point is that doctors are trained and encouraged to prescribe in “therapeutic” but high doses which cause many of the side effects. This is good for the drug companies but not for the patient.

The situation with lithium is complicated since it is a mineral which we ingest in trace amounts depending on where we live and what we eat. There is some epidemiological evidence that amount of dietary lithium is correlated with mood disorders and crime. This type of study is very difficult in practice and almost impossible to fund. The point is that there is some reason to think that “small” amounts of lithium could help reduce bipolar illness. The fact that there is no scientific evidence is as much a symptom of the way the medical system is organized and funded, as anything else. It is also hard to find a doctor who is willing to prescribe such small dosages and monitor your progress. The claims of the companies selling these supplements are outrageous, but there is plenty of outrageous behavior on the part of the drug companies as well. This leaves the patient at the mercy of one or the other.

My education is in Experimental Physics. I do understand how to judge experimental results even in other fields.