by Dr.Harald Wiesendanger– Klartext
What the mainstream media is hiding
Lithium, a tried-and-tested antidepressant, isn’t just good for the mentally ill, according to a nutritional supplement expert, after a self-experiment. The depressed German republic could undoubtedly use a mood enhancer – provided there are no side effects.
Lithium, a tried-and-tested antidepressant, isn’t just good for the mentally ill, according to a nutritional supplement expert after a self-experiment. The depressed German republic could undoubtedly use a mood enhancer – provided there are no side effects.
Just one millimeter long and seven-hundredths of a millimeter thick, swarming through the soil of temperate climates, usually dead after just 20 days: such a short-lived tiny creature seems doomed to a thoroughly insignificant existence. However, this is by no means the case for Caenorhabditis elegans, a nematode. For over 60 years, it has provided groundbreaking insights for biologists and physicians as a model organism.
One of these organisms caught the attention of Lorenz Borsche, an amateur researcher from Heidelberg, whose curiosity has always been far too great to be satisfied by a single topic. He initially studied physics and mathematics, then sociology and political science. Soon after, he began working professionally in energy and environmental research, laboratory software, production planning and control systems, online shops, and market research. He dedicated over a quarter of a century of his life to selling the printed word; he founded and managed the largest cooperative in the German retail book trade. He then entered a fulfilling retirement, made health his main focus, discovered his talent as an author, and published his first book about sugar – Deadly Temptation – in 2018. (1) Three years later, his second followed: Dietary Supplementation in Self-Experimentation. (2) And starting on page 81 of this book, it becomes clear how Caenorhabditis elegans, that inconspicuous little worm, managed to become significant for Lorenz Borsche.
That was in 2017. Borsche came across study results (3) from a research group at the universities of Jena and Potsdam from 2011 that astonished him: Nematodes of the genus C. elegans lived longer when they received a little lithium in their food. Without this additive in the nutrient medium in which they were kept, they died just 12 days after the start of the experiment. Five millimoles of lithium extended their lifespan by an average of a quarter, and ten millimoles by up to 45%.
What does this connection matter to a non-worm like us? The same researchers, together with Japanese colleagues, showed in another study: The more lithium the drinking water in 19 Japanese regions contained, the higher the life expectancy. At the same time, there were fewer suicides there. (4) An Austrian study also 2011 described the same phenomenon. (5) Ten years later, an Iranian meta-analysis of 13 studies confirmed this connection. A study published in the USA in 1990 had already found a significantly reduced suicide rate in regions with elevated lithium concentrations in drinking water. (6)
Doesn’t it follow from all this that the constant intake of lithium in low doses can not only prolong human life but significantly brighten it?
Lithium? Of all things, that light metal that most of us would rather expect to find in batteries, X-ray film, copper alloys, glass, and ceramics than in nutritious food? Borsche was fascinated. The research he had discovered concerned two of his main concerns. He would love to live as healthily as possible for as long as possible – to this end, he has been studying diets and nutritional supplements for some time. And he wanted to finally be in a better mood. He wasn’t exactly a cheerful person. He tended to get very angry about disappointments and failures. Year after year, the “winter blues” took a toll on him. At the “dark hour,” between three and four in the morning, he all too often lay sleepless in bed, tossing and turning over dark thoughts. Perhaps his psychological lows were partly due to his family background because “I come from a family where bipolar disorder, that is, mania and depression, is not unknown.” (7)
Even in Borsche’s youth, lithium – in the form of salts such as lithium carbonate – was the standard medication for quickly, within a few weeks, treating and stabilizing severely bipolar patients. Why should its use be limited to psychiatry? Couldn’t it benefit us all, especially here in Germany? Nowhere is the earth’s vale of tears deeper than between Flensburg and Garmisch.
No Fear of Side Effects
Wouldn’t that be dangerous? Lithium therapy can cause quite unpleasant side effects: They range from weight gain, circulatory problems, tremors, nausea and vomiting, changes in blood count, fatigue, and diarrhea to an underactive thyroid. An excessive dose can lead to cardiac arrhythmias, seizures, kidney damage, and coma. Pregnant women treated with too much lithium have, in rare cases, given birth to children with heart defects.
But as with everything in pharmaceuticals, it’s the dose that makes the poison. For a 70-kilogram (150-pound) normal patient with bipolar disorder, the therapeutic daily dose, after a phased-in period, is around 200 milligrams of metallic lithium. Couldn’t a much smaller amount be sufficient to benefit us all and without risk?
Lorenz Borsche has been convinced of this since he had one thing ahead of his anxious contemporaries: He thoroughly researched the current state of research.
Since then, he has known that completely avoiding lithium, out of concern about its toxic potential, is as impossible as it is unnecessary. One liter of groundwater contains up to 500 micrograms (= 0.5 mg) of lithium. Our mineral waters almost always contain lithium, usually less than or around one milligram per liter but occasionally more than ten milligrams. The Bonifaciusbrunnen spring in Bad Salzschlirf, Hesse, even boasts 21 milligrams. We also absorb lithium through many foods. The highest concentrations are found in wholegrain grains, rice, milk, and vegetables, such as onions, garlic, sugar beets, and potatoes, at 0.5 to 3.4 mg/kg. The lithium content of animal-based foods such as meat, eggs, and butter is significantly lower; it is approximately 12 micrograms (µg) = 0.012 mg per kilogram.
To demonize lithium would, therefore, be nonsense. This trace element is present in each of us throughout our lives – apparently without harming or even killing us.
What amounts would be beneficial and safe? How much would be too much?
“Born Again” in a Self-Experiment
Lorenzo Borsche explores this in an exciting self-experiment: For five years, he has been taking ten milligrams of lithium daily – approximately one-twentieth of the dose used in psychiatry, thus far from any concerns. Since then, he has felt transformed: more balanced, more relaxed, more cheerful, and much more often in a cheerful mood than before. Depressive episodes haven’t completely disappeared – but they are less frequent, shorter, and less severe.
Isn’t Borsche prematurely risking his health? The foolishness of such everyday use seems to have been demonstrated as early as the 1940s in the USA. Because lithium chloride tastes salty, it was used as a substitute for table salt. The result was severe and, in some cases, even fatal, poisoning. This scandal prevented lithium from gaining a foothold as a psychotropic drug for a long time. (8)
There are actually virtually no scientific studies on the long-term effects of long-term, low-dose lithium intake. But Lorenz Borsche doesn’t need them. More than ten milligrams of lithium daily: that’s how much he could get from just one or two liters of mineral water. Should he be afraid of that?
In the specialist literature, Borsche came across an estimate that the human body’s daily lithium requirement is around ten milligrams (9) – which corresponds exactly to his chosen dosage. At the same time, it would mean that most of us are significantly undersupplied with this trace element, as well as with magnesium, iron, selenium, vitamins D and B12, folic acid (B9), and other micronutrients. On average, a German only absorbs 0.8 milligrams of lithium.
That shouldn’t bother us if lithium “has no biological function,” as Wikipedia claims. But here, our “digital global memory” may be spreading fake news, as is so often the case when it comes to health topics. A growing number of experts consider this trace element, because it promotes our health in a variety of ways, to be just as “essential” as iron, fluorine, iodine, copper, manganese, chromium, molybdenum, selenium, and zinc. It even appears to protect against dementia. (10)
“Conspiracy” undermines our lithium supply.
A qualified physician and molecular geneticist fully agrees with Borsche: Dr. Michael Nehls, who has been considered Germany’s “lithium pope” since his Spiegel bestseller, The Lithium Conspiracy. Based on hundreds of studies, his core message is that lithium is, in fact, an essential trace element – vital to life. In his opinion, widespread lithium deficiency contributes significantly to the almost pandemic-like rise in serious mental developmental disorders and mental illnesses, which Nehls summarizes as “mental immunodeficiency syndrome.” The fatal consequences, warns Nehls, range from autism to chronic fatigue, brain fog, loss of zest for life, anxiety syndromes, depression, and suicide, all the way to Alzheimer’s. “There is no disease of civilization that isn’t directly or indirectly positively influenced by lithium.” However, a veritable “conspiracy” by politicians and the pharmaceutical industry, which is dreading unpatentable natural remedies, is blocking an adequate supply of lithium to the population, which would make them more mentally stable and capable and simply healthier. “I’m not against science; quite the opposite,” he says. “I just have a problem with scientific evidence being ignored and swept under the rug. Too much money is being made from sick people. Medicine has degenerated into an industry, and this is extremely lucrative.”
“Wonderful protective shield” – for 4 cents a day
How do you get lithium if not as a patient? Difficult, if not impossible, at least in the countries of the European Union. An appendix to the EU Food Supplements Directive (Nem-RL), 2002/46/EC, lists all permitted vitamin and mineral compounds – lithium is not one of them.
Internet research leads to mail-order companies in England, the USA, and Switzerland. Obtaining lithium from abroad is, of course, expensive and risky: Customs authorities are increasingly intercepting such shipments. While importing unregistered medicines is not (yet) prohibited, they may be imported for personal use in a three-month supply. However, approaching suspicious customs officials, explaining the situation, and proving urgent personal needs can be pretty stressful.
Lorenz Borsche doesn’t even want to get involved in foreseeable circumstances. He obtains the drug from German pharmacies on prescription, accommodatingly issued by a knowledgeable family doctor who approves of Borsche’s self-experiment. Until recently, he used “Lithiofor”; however, it has recently disappeared from the German market—”out of circulation”—and is now only available in Switzerland as lithium sulfate with 83 mg of lithium. “Quilonorm” and “Quilonum,” both containing 450 mg of lithium carbonate each, are still available in this country. One tablet contains approximately 85 mg of lithium. Another preparation, “Hypnorex,” with 400 mg of lithium carbonate, delivers 75 mg per tablet; “Neurolepsin,” with 300 mg of lithium carbonate, delivers 56 mg per tablet. (11)
Using a pill cutter, Borsche breaks the pills down to 10 mg daily – precisely the amount researchers have declared to be a basic requirement (see above). This means he swallows only a twentieth of the dose used in psychiatry – far from the danger zone, but apparently in his comfort zone because the dark hours, he assures us, are no longer there. With the equivalent of a few cents a day, “I buy myself a wonderfully effective shield against the dark hours and the ever-lurking winter blues.” (12)
Lorenz Borsche doesn’t consider this “shield” to be pharmaceutically artificial at all. “For me, lithium is an essential micronutrient,” he clarifies. “Its deficiency has proven effects, as does a lack of D3 in depression. Our basic state should be cheerful, optimistic, and empathetic, not grumpy or even aggressive. Some organs suffer specifically from micronutrient deficiencies. Our brain also suffers when it lacks lithium.” (13)
With lithium to a “Brave New World”?
A psychotropic drug for everyone? This involuntarily brings to mind Huxley’s dystopia of a “Brave New World” (14) in the year 2540, in which the masses are pacified with the happiness drug “soma.” The Israeli futurist Yuval Harari, a leading thinker at the World Economic Forum, recently came up with a similar idea: He predicts that the Fourth Industrial Revolution, in which artificial intelligence will soon perform virtually every task better than the rest of us, will create billions of “useless eaters.” How do you keep them happy when euthanasia is out of the question? How do you keep them from vacuously coming up with critical thoughts about the system and becoming rebellious? With computer games and drugs.
To accuse Lorenz Borsche of such ulterior motives would be as mean as it is wrong. When it comes to lithium, as with nutritional supplements in general, he emphasizes at every opportunity that he has no panacea for everyone—rather, he describes his own path. What was exactly right for him personally is by no means necessarily right for everyone around him. “I am neither a doctor nor a healer, and I will do my best to avoid saying: ‘You just have to do this and that, and then it will definitely…’ I’m telling my story.” (15)
Moreover, sustained mental well-being does not necessarily make one uncritical; on the contrary, Only those who feel mostly comfortable in their own skin are strong enough to confront the unhealthy world. Who doesn’t enjoy this prospect, aside from the roundworm?
(Harald Wiesendanger)
P.S.: Please also note the “Disclaimer and general information on medical topics” section in the KLARTEXT imprint for this article.
Updated version of a KLARTEXT article from February 4, 2024.
Notes
1 Braumüller: Wien 2018, https://www.braumueller.at/t?isbn=9783991002413
2 Braumüller: Wien 2021, https://www.braumueller.at/t?isbn=9783991003250
3 K. Zarse u.a.: “Low-dose lithium uptake promotes longevity in humans and metazoans,” European Journal of Nutrition 50/2011, S. 387-389, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21301855/
4 H. Ohgami u.a.: “Lithium levels in drinking water and risk of suicide,” British Journal of Psychiatry 194/2009, S. 464-465, https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.bp.110.091041
5 Nestor D. Kapusta u.a.: “Lithium in drinking water and suicide mortality,” British Journal of Psychiatry: The Journal of Mental Science, 198 (5) 2011, S. 346–350, doi:10.1192/bjp.bp.110.091041, PMID 21525518.
6 Gerhard N. Schrauzer, Krishna P. Shrestha: “Lithium in drinking water and the incidences of crimes, suicides, and arrests related to drug addictions,” Biological Trace Element Research 25, Mai 1990, S. 105–113, PMID 1699579.
7 Borsche: Nahrungsergänzung, a.a.O, S. 83
8 https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithiumtherapie, Abschnitt “Geschichte”
9 Reis 1960, nach Lutz Schneider: Lithium und Lithiumcarbonat (2019), S. 17, https://d-nb.info/1215942850/34
10 Sean M. J. McBride u. a.: “Pharmacological and Genetic Reversal of Age-Dependent Cognitive Deficits Attributable to Decreased presenilin Function,” The Journal of Neuroscience 30 (28) 2010, S. 9510–9522, doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1017-10.2010; Lars Vedel Kessing u.a.: “Association of Lithium in Drinking Water With the Incidence of Dementia“, JAMA Psychiatry 74 (10) 2017, S. 1005, doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2017.2362.)
11 Nach Angaben von Lorenz Borsche in einer privaten E-Mail vom 30. Januar 2024.
12 Borsche: Nahrungsergänzung, a.a.O, S. 91
13 Zit. Lorenz Borsche, aus einer privaten E-Mail vom 2. Februar 2024.
14 Aldous Huxley: Brave New World. A Novel of the Future, 7th edition, Frankfurt am Main, 2018.
15 Borsche: Nahrungsergänzung, a.a.O, S. 13
Cover image: Collage of images by Ajale/Pixabay and 8385/Pixabay