Dementia is the leading cause of death in elderly Western populations.
But no preventative treatments are currently available: more than 55 million people worldwide have dementia, with Alzheimer’s disease as the most common form.
Lithium is a mood stabilizer usually prescribed for conditions such as bipolar affective disorder and depression.
Previous studies have suggested lithium as a potential treatment for those who have already been diagnosed with dementia or early cognitive impairment.
But it is unclear whether it can delay or even prevent the development of dementia altogether, as these studies have been limited in size.
In a study from the University of Cambridge, scientists found a link suggesting that lithium could decrease the risk of developing dementia, which affects nearly one million people in the UK.
They 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.
The team found that patients who received lithium were less likely to develop dementia than those who did not, although the overall number of patients who received lithium was small.
For the group that had received lithium, 53, or 9.7%, were diagnosed with dementia. For the group that had not received lithium, 3,244, or 11.2%, were diagnosed with dementia.
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.
Their findings support the possibility that lithium could be a preventative treatment for dementia and could be progressed to large randomized controlled trials.
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.
If you care about dementia, please read studies about new drugs for incurable vascular dementia, and these things may have the biggest impact on your dementia risk.
For more information about brain health, please see recent studies about antioxidants that could help reduce dementia risk, and Vitamin D deficiency linked to higher dementia risk.
The study was conducted by Dr. Shanquan Chen et al and published in PLoS Medicine.
Copyright © 2022 Knowridge Science Report. All rights reserved.
