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Lithium found in drinking water in Andes Mountain villages
Thyroid dysfunction and kidney damage are known adverse effects of lithium exposure.
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Inhabitants of several villages in the Andes Mountains of Argentina are ingesting lithium via the groundwater and it may be affecting their thyroid function, according to researchers.
Lithium, an element used in batteries, is also an ingredient in certain medications, such as that for bipolar disorder. The Andes are rich in elements, as evidenced by the large copper mines in Chile and Peru, among others. In several countries, lithium is also extracted; Bolivia has enormous lithium reserves in its large salt desert, Salar de Uyuni. However, the elements in the group are not just a resource, but may also be an environmental risk.
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Previous research has also hinted at a trend of lithium in drinking water in mountain villages in the Salta province in northwest Argentina.
“The amounts of lithium that the inhabitants of these villages are ingesting via their drinking water are perhaps one-tenth of what a patient would take daily for bipolar disorder. But, on the other hand, they are absorbing this lithium all their lives, even from before birth,” Karin Broberg, PhD, occupational and environmental biologist at Lund University, Sweden, said.
She told Endocrine Today that she and colleagues “have conducted studies in this area since 1994 due to the high levels of the toxicant arsenic in the drinking water. In samples collected in 2008, we found, with a more sophisticated technique (mass spectrometry), also very high concentrations of lithium in the study participants’ urine.” High levels of arsenic, cesium, rubidium and boron were also found in the drinking water and in the urine of the women studied.
Potential adverse health effects
Broberg said lifelong ingestion of lithium and other substances may be associated with adverse health risks.
“Our study demonstrates for the first time that lithium in drinking water influences the thyroid similar to hypothyroid effects seen during medical treatment with lithium against bipolar disorder,” she told Endocrine Today.
Despite high levels of lithium in the drinking water, few women presented with clinical thyroid disease, Broberg said of her study.
“We know that there are only a fraction of individuals taking lithium for medical treatment who develop thyroid disease, indicating that there exists a susceptibility to treatment-related thyroid effects from lithium. This is probably true also for environmental exposure to lithium,” she said in the interview.
Future directions
What these data imply for the health of the women in Argentina is not yet known. Broberg and other researchers are planning a new study to compare the health of two groups of mothers and children — those with the highest and lowest levels of lithium in their blood. Additional research may target other areas with elevated lithium concentrations in the drinking water and the health effects of lithium exposure during pregnancy, she said.
“Based on the little knowledge about the toxic effects of environmental lithium and if there are some individuals who are more susceptible than others, physicians should be concerned over elevated drinking water concentrations of lithium,” Broberg said. “Clinicians should be aware that thyroid dysfunction could be caused by thyroid toxicants present in the drinking water.” – by Katie Kalvaitis, with additional reporting by Casey Murphy