Over the past year I feel that I have covered a wide spectrum of proven actions of Lithium from improvement in cognitive function, reduction of violent crime, drug addiction, suicide, etc. It was only in looking for abnormal side-effects of micro-dose Lithium that I came across considerable work clearly demonstrating a correlation between hardness in water and atherosclerotic heart disease (Voors et al Am J Epid 1970;92:164-171 and 93:259-266). Of the six elements in drinking water causing hardness the best correlation of improving AHD is that of the Lithium content. It is interesting that the literature in this era has Lithium in drinking water.
With the cost of ischemic heart disease (IHD) I would have thought that the article in The Lancet December 20, 1969 “Does Lithium depletion cause atherosclerotic heart disease” would have been followed even at this late date. From the article, “it would entail a highly cost-effective means of preventing AHD and improving the quality of middle-aged life through simply enrichment of municipal water supply”. It draws attention to the action of Lithium antagonizing five of the most potent AHD risk factors – hypertension, diabetes, tissue uric acid, type A behaviour, and serum lipid levels. See posts on Garrod discussing lithium and gout.
Concern with tampering of water supplies is understandable but just raises the Lithium concentration in communities drawing the water from lakes, rivers, or reservoirs to that found in many countries where there is no obvious evidence of toxicity in their Lithium levels might be justifiable or warrant more research.
I suppose it is never too late to learn!
The Boron Miracle Ignored...and other orphan agents 