According to a new study from the University of Cambridge, lithium can help to decrease the risk of developing dementia.
The research was published in the journal, ‘ PLoS Medicine.’ According to the reports, “The researchers conducted a retrospective analysis of the health records of nearly 30,000 patients from Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust.”
The patients were all over the age of 50 and accessed NHS mental health services between 2005 and 2019.
Although the overall number of patients who took lithium was small, the analysis revealed that individuals who received lithium were less likely to develop dementia than those who did not. The study also noted that lithium could be used as a dementia preventative medication.
“The number of people with dementia continues to grow, which puts huge pressure on healthcare systems,” said Dr. Shanquan Chen from Cambridge’s Department of Psychiatry, the paper’s first author.
“It’s been estimated that delaying the onset of dementia by just five years could reduce its prevalence and economic impact by as much as 40 percent,” Dr. Chen added.
Lithium is a mood stabilizer usually prescribed for conditions such as bipolar affective disorder and depression. “Bipolar disorder and depression are considered to put people at increased risk of dementia, so we had to make sure to account for this in our analysis,” commented Dr. Chen.
After controlling for factors such as smoking, other medications, and other physical and mental illnesses, lithium use was associated with a lower risk of dementia, both for short and long-term users. However, since the overall number of patients receiving lithium was small and this was an observational study, larger clinical trials would be needed to establish lithium as a potential treatment for dementia.
“We expected to find that patients with bipolar disorder were more likely to develop dementia since that is the most common reason to be prescribed lithium, but our analysis suggested the opposite. It’s far too early to say for sure, but it’s possible that lithium might reduce the risk of dementia in people with bipolar disorder,” Dr. Chen concluded.
