A naturally occurring salt, lithium has been dubbed both a miracle drug and the gold standard in the treatment of bipolar disorder, alternatively—and perhaps more descriptively—known as manic-depressive disorder.
About lithium
Lithium is a type of medicine known as a mood stabiliser. It's used to treat mood disorders such as: mania (feeling highly excited, overactive or distracted) hypo-mania (similar to mania, but less severe)
For some people, lithium can help decrease abnormal activity in the brain, manic episodes and suicidal feelings. Short-term side effects can include shaking, fatigue, headache and gastrointestinal problems, while a long-term side effect can be weight gain.
Chronic lithium alone slowed PRLT acquisition. Reduced DAT functioning increased motivation (PRB), an effect attenuated by lithium in GBR12909-treated mice. Neurochemical analyses revealed that DAT knockdown mice exhibited elevated homovanillic acid levels, but that lithium had no effect on these elevated levels.
One of the major pharmacological agents in the treatment of BD is lithium. It remains the gold standard in preventing recurrences in BD I (mania and depressive episodes) and BD II (hypomania and depressive episodes) and is effective in the treatment of mania.
In 62% of episodes, lithium was discontinued due to adverse effects, in 44% due to psychiatric reasons, and in 12% due to physical reasons interfering with lithium treatment.
Lithium works for bipolar disorder by reducing the frequency and severity of mania. It might also work by preventing and relieving bipolar depression. Lithium is also known as Lithobid and Eskalith is one of the most studied and used medications for treating bipolar disorder.
Lithium also stimulates proliferation of stem cells, including bone marrow and neural stem cells in the subventricular zone, striatum, and forebrain. The stimulation of endogenous neural stem cells may explain why lithium increases brain cell density and volume in patients with bipolar disorders.
While other medications might work better for some people, lithium remains a common form of treatment for stabilizing manic episodes, characterized by racing thoughts, grandiosity, decreased need for sleep, and hallucinations, says Shayla Sullivant, MD, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Children's Mercy Hospital ...
A common complaint made by those who take lithium, but one which may easily be overlooked, is cognitive compromise. Clinically, patients describe this as “brain fog”-an elusive admixture of complaints regarding attention, concentration, and memory occurring in conjunction with a slowing of thought processes.
Much of the information available says that—once you are diagnosed with bipolar disorder—you will have to take medication for the rest of your life. Most commonly included medications are Lithium, mood stabilizers, and antipsychotics.
If you have bipolar disorder, you may be offered lithium for a longer period, to prevent or reduce your risk of relapse. Your doctor may suggest that you commit to taking lithium for at least six months, possibly longer. This is because it can take some time to make sure the medication is working effectively.
Lithium can be life changing for those who find bipolar disorder difficult to manage, but its use does come with side effects. In this article, we outline some of the more common short term and long term side effects of taking lithium.
Lithium attenuates the activation-euphoria but not the psychosis induced by d-amphetamine in schizophrenia.
We found no reliable evidence of any robust differences between lithium and antidepressants but nor could we reliably exclude the possibility of clinically significant differences. In this review some studies included a mixed group of participants with either bipolar or unipolar disorder.
Conclusions: Taken in the context of prior evidence, lithium may have an important role in treating comorbid anxiety in bipolar disorder, both as adjunct and monotherapy. Lower doses of lithium may provide equivalent efficacy and enhance tolerability and compliance.
Lithium improves the body's ability to synthesize serotonin. This simply means that the body's levels of serotonin increase in response to lithium, which has the effect of improving mood and reducing feelings of anxiousness.
It takes about 1 to 3 weeks for lithium to show the effects and remission of symptoms. Many patients show only a partial reduction of symptoms, and some may be nonresponders. In cases where the patient does not display an adequate response, consider monitoring plasma levels, and titrating the dose.
Summary: Children who have received radiotherapy for a brain tumor can develop cognitive problems later in life. In their studies on mice, researchers have now shown that the drug lithium can help to reverse the damage caused long after it has occurred.
While there are different medications used to treat manic and depressive episodes in people with bipolar disorder, lithium is a commonly used medication. Studies suggest that lithium is very effective at both treating symptoms of bipolar disorder and preventing relapses of the condition.
The three organ systems that may be negatively affected by lithium are the thyroid gland, kidneys and parathyroid glands.
Although bipolar disorder is often treated with more than one drug, some people can control their condition with lithium alone.
The ones that treat bipolar depression are cariprazine (Vraylar), lurasidone (Latuda), olanzapine-fluoxetine combo (Symbyax), and quetiapine (Seroquel).
For roughly one-third of people diagnosed with bipolar disorder, lithium is a miracle drug, effectively treating both their mania and depression. But once someone is diagnosed, it can take up to a year to learn whether that person will be among the 30 percent who respond to lithium or the 70 percent who do not.
Descriptions. Lithium is used to treat mania that is part of bipolar disorder (manic-depressive illness). It is also used on a daily basis to reduce the frequency and severity of manic episodes.