Lithium in drinking water linked to negative effects on human health
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Key takeaways:
- Increased risk for autism spectrum disorder was associated with 7.36 µg/L lithium exposure.
- Increased risk for schizophrenia spectrum disorder was associated with 5.8 µg/L lithium exposure.
NEW YORK — Lithium exposure in drinking water was associated with potentially detrimental effects on human health, including increased risk for autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia spectrum disorder, according to researchers.
“At the state hospital we deal with a lot of the sickest patients,” Sonja M. Johnson, DO, a fourth-year psychiatry resident at Indiana University Health, told Healio at the American Psychiatric Association annual meeting. “Lithium is an awesome medication, and it does a lot of great things. We always hear the phrase, ‘That’s so good. Put it in the water!’ I mean, they did it with fluoride, right?”
Andrea Patterson, MD, also a fourth-year resident in psychiatry, and colleagues at Indiana University School of Medicine performed a systematic review of 26 studies with data from five continents to determine whether higher levels of environmental lithium in the water supply poses a risk to human health.
“Mental health is still kind of taboo in our area, but water is important, and people drink water,” Johnson said. “The question was, can we help everyone without making everyone take medicine?”
Of the reviewed studies, 12 showed that lithium exposure through drinking water had the potential for negative effects on the nervous, cardiovascular, endocrine, lymphatic, urinary and integumentary systems and could affect newborns to adults and pregnant women.
Although researchers reported that at 7 µg/L, lithium begins to have protective factors against suicide, they noted that at 7.36 µg/L it was associated with autism spectrum disorder, and at 5.8 µg/L with schizophrenia.
“Given this information, any lithium added to the U.S. water supply for protective reasons would inevitably increase the risk of harm,” researchers wrote.
“When you ask a question, sometimes the answer is no,” Johnson said. “That’s still an answer, and that’s still pretty awesome, because if you don’t ask you don’t know.”