from the what-is-your-glass-half-full-of? dept.
The New York Times reports [*]
The idea of putting a mind-altering drug in the drinking water is the stuff of sci-fi, terrorist plots and totalitarian governments. Considering the outcry that occurred when putting fluoride in the water was first proposed, one can only imagine the furor that would ensue if such a thing were ever suggested.
The debate, however, is moot. It’s a done deal. Mother Nature has already put a psychotropic drug in the drinking water, and that drug is lithium. Although this fact has been largely ignored for over half a century, it appears to have important medical implications. Researchers began to ask whether low levels of lithium might correlate with poor behavioral outcomes in humans. In 1990, a study was published looking at 27 Texas counties with a variety of lithium levels in their water. The authors discovered that people whose water had the least amount of lithium had significantly greater levels of suicide, homicide and rape than the people whose water had the higher levels of lithium. The group whose water had the highest lithium level had nearly 40 percent fewer suicides than that with the lowest lithium level. Almost 20 years later, a Japanese study that looked at 18 municipalities with more than a million inhabitants over a five-year period confirmed the earlier study’s finding: Suicide rates were inversely correlated with the lithium content in the local water supply. More recently, there have been corroborating studies in Greece and Austria.
[...]
Today lithium is little discussed despite the huge public appetite for health information. Nor is it much advertised or even available. For the public health issue of suicide prevention alone, it seems imperative that such studies be conducted. In 2011, suicide was the 10th leading cause of death in the United States. Research on a simple element like lithium that has been around as a medication for over half a century and as a drink for millenniums may not seem like a high priority, but it should be.
[* Editor's note: submitter indicated this article was behind a paywall, but the above link presented no problems for me.]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday September 15 2014, @05:44PM
From time to time, I've given a little thought to the hazards of handling lubricants on the job. This is interesting - maybe I should get MORE lithium grease on me?
But, I'm reminded of the silly woman who took a bath in WD-40, and died. Apparently she heard that the DMSO in WD-40 had some good medical properties, but she failed to take into account all the other stuff in the lubricant. Strangely - I can't find that story on the internet - maybe it was a hoax?
(Score: 4, Informative) by VLM on Monday September 15 2014, @08:24PM
From a chemist standpoint the WD40 story sounded like BS, and 30 seconds with google provides
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WD-40 [wikipedia.org]
So its basically like soaking your skin in naptha lighter fluid and some random lube oils.
Its not good for your body at all, and your poor liver will have to do a lot of work. Maybe that killed the urban legend woman. If she exists.
A bath in the stuff is probably about 40% odds liver failure, 10% odds asphyxiation, 40% odds death by fire/burns, and maybe 10% odds slipping in all that oil and breaking neck. So yeah really dumb idea in general but the specific failure mode is unlikely.
I've gotten to fool around with dmso in the ochem lab, Very Weird experience and if wd40 had significant dmso in it, I'd notice.
The MSDS seems to imply there can't be DMSO in there, other than some kind of weird trace contamination or something.
The local machinists swear it's pure kerosene because kerosene is a great cutting fluid for aluminum and so is WD-40, which is about the same level of logic as you can assemble a carpentry project with screws or nails therefore hammers and screwdrivers must be the same thing.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday September 16 2014, @12:05AM
More likely (if she exists) she did it to get high, every time I've seen really batshit crap like that IRL its a junkie trying to get high. Oh you THINK that nobody would buy that shit, but when a junkie is hurting and needs to get high? I've seen junkies spray fucking RAID bug spray on cheap pot and bake the shit in the oven and then smoke it, saw one take embalming fluid and put that on a cigarette and smoke it, saw one shoot up fucking ditchwater and JD to get high, its just fucking nuts. This is one of the reasons I'm for legalizing drugs because you will NOT stop a junkie from trying to get high by banning drugs, all you do is make sure there is "droughts" which will leave a bunch of permanently disabled or brain damaged junkies all over the place when they start drinking brake fluid or using air cans up the nose to get a buzz from brain freeze..I shit you not we had a rash of those when we had the last drought here!
As for TFA...sounds like treating the symptoms and not the cause to me. Its probably cheaper to treat the symptoms but IMHO a better course of action would be to find out WHY these areas have higher crime and suicide...are they depressed neighborhoods in the ghetto? Lack of jobs and opportunities? The problem with TFA is the simple fact that I don't trust the government as far as I can throw them and its certainly better for those at the top of the status quo to just drug the poor so they don't bitch about the soul grinding misery they live in than to actually do anything about income inequality, offshoring, the exploitation of illegals to depress wages and create a slave class, and all the other things that help keep a permanent underclass living in decay.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @05:47PM
...just the submitter. Hey, it benefits brain health ;P
(Score: 1, Informative) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday September 15 2014, @05:50PM
However I must caution that the toxic dose of Lithium ion in the blood, is well-documented to not be very much larger than the clinically effective dose that prevents mania. When starting a Lithium regimen, one must have a lot of blood tests until one's personal dose is well-established.
I expect there is lots of Lithium in seawater. It is chemically quite similar to Potassium and Sodium. I've often wondered if salting our food with sea salt, or using stuff like hot sauce that is preserved with sea salt, could be effective in reducing mania.
Mania is an elevated, euphoric state. In itself it wouldn't make you suicidal. However it is common for depression to set in when the mania ends.
Roughly 1% of the population is manic-depression. I myself have Bipolar-Type Schizoaffective Disorder, somewhat like being manic depressive and schizophrenic at the same time.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday September 15 2014, @07:14PM
The discussion here is not about a clinical dose, but rather just residual dose found naturally in the water supply.
None of the water systems in these areas would every be allowed to operate with anything close to a tiny fraction of a clinical dose.
As for extraction from sea water, being chemically similar has nothing to do with concentrations.
Table 1 of this PDF [google.com] shows relative quantities available in seawater of various elements, and table 2 shows how much seawater you would need to process to obtain commercially attractive quantities of Lithium. It would take 10 times the total world desalination capacity to obtain usable quantities of Lithium.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Tuesday September 16 2014, @02:59AM
That's not what the PDF says. You would need that much to completely replace the current supply.
Most studies indicate that lithium recovery from seawater would be, at best, marginal at current prices, and since it's a big investment in speculative technology nobody does it.
If we start running short of lithium, the price will go up and people who are desalinating anyway will add lithium production.
If it goes up further, people will build new plants that optimise both fresh water and lithium production.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday September 15 2014, @07:38PM
As someone who is M-D and has not sought help or meds, how did Lithium work for you? What was your experience? I keep wanting to take meds to help get my life in order but I am hesitant.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @10:02PM
I'm not the OP you're asking the question of but I can tell you this: Prepare to get fat. At least that's what happened to me back in the '80s when I was taking it. Well known side effect.
All that being said they may have new ways of dealing with things like that but you wouldn't catch me on it again. However, it did save my life.
Eventually no medications would work. Ended up with ECT. Now that worked better than anything else but it's a last ditch effort. It really screwed with my memory. Imagine waking up in a town you've lived in for 10 years and not even knowing how to find your way home. I had to learn the whole town over again, just as if I had just moved there. And my short and long term memory is pretty trashed to this day and that was about 10 years ago.
(Score: 3, Informative) by LoRdTAW on Monday September 15 2014, @11:53PM
Scary stuff. My M-D is mild but disruptive to my life enough to consider treatment. The depression is my "bad thoughts" phase. After a bout of mania a.k.a. my "good thoughts" phase where I come up with a lot of my ideas I get these bad thoughts in my head. e.g. imaging family members dying, what if I die, and other paranoid shit (thanks to trauma of a close friend dying horribly a few years back). And I also go through a rage phase . I can control the rage but I am afraid I might pop a blood vessel in my brain as both my father and his father suffered from strokes. So to combat the bad thoughts I do something monotonous like watch TV or my favorite, play solitaire on my tablet or phone. Must have played that game thousands of times and sometimes to the point where I almost shit or piss myself as I don't want to stop playing. Just keep going. Another activity is playing PC games but I have become bored with them (recently picked up Farcry 3 but the lame dream phases ruined it)
For the most part I am living just fine but I can't seem to move forward. I feel that my life is one weekend to the next, year after year.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @06:00PM
"...is the stuff of sci-fi, terrorist plots and totalitarian governments"
...and teen exploitation movies. Wild in the Streets [wikipedia.org]
Kids spiked the DC reservoir with LSD and got Congress stoned.
The soundtrack had a song that actually charted.
.
...and NYT is widely recognized as a paywalled site.
As EF indicated in the queue, the cure is easy:
Even if it's not true, always indicate that you're coming from Google. [soylentnews.org]
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @06:56PM
Max Frost and the Troopers "The Shape of Things to Come"
You forgot about putting everyone over thirty into concentration camps dosed with LSD.
(Score: 4, Funny) by bob_super on Monday September 15 2014, @06:11PM
Do I get a medal if I crash with an electric car in our local water reservoir?
"'Tis not littering or reckless driving, officer, it's a public service!"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Alfred on Monday September 15 2014, @07:27PM
Choose carefully, not all cars have lithium ion batteries. Some are NiMH.
C'mon Man! Do some research!
/snark
(Score: 2) by marcello_dl on Tuesday September 16 2014, @11:06AM
bbzzttt
(Score: 2, Informative) by WillAdams on Monday September 15 2014, @06:16PM
Seems there were a number of places which did this, including one eponymous place: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithia_water [wikipedia.org]
and the latter is still available: http://lithiamineralwater.com/ [lithiamineralwater.com]
(Score: 2) by randmcnatt on Monday September 15 2014, @06:42PM
The Wright brothers were not the first to fly: they were the first to land.
(Score: 1) by arashi no garou on Monday September 15 2014, @07:14PM
I live near Lithia Springs, and I've never seen "Lithia Water" on the shelves around here. I wonder if they are still even in business.
(Score: 3, Funny) by evilviper on Monday September 15 2014, @06:57PM
I think this is actually Ethanol-fueled's covert attempt at tricking us into taking Lithium, so we all make ourselves as crazy as him... [soylentnews.org]
I don't know how he fooled the NY Times editors into publishing the article, but this is clearly the first step in his plan for world domination that he's been working on for quite some time.
Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by pendorbound on Monday September 15 2014, @06:58PM
It seems the analysis focused purely on possible negative outcomes of life, but did nothing to evaluate anything that makes life, well.. worth living.
If a dose of lithium makes you too *blah* to bother offing yourself, that’s not the same thing as having a happy, productive life. Conversely, people who choose to commit suicide aren’t necessarily all suffering from a chemical imbalance that can (or should) be medicated away.
We’ve all seen Serenity here, right? If you smooth the highs & lows of life out too much, what’s the point of living it, even if you can’t muster the will to end it?
(Score: 3, Funny) by e_armadillo on Monday September 15 2014, @07:53PM
I was going to go out and buy some lithium. But after reading this post, I think I will go start my car with the garage closed . . .
"How are we gonna get out of here?" ... "We'll dig our way out!" ... "No, no, dig UP stupid!"
(Score: 2) by tibman on Monday September 15 2014, @09:49PM
Similar argument against fluoride. Good for the teeth, let's use it. Oh, it gives you constant stomach pain? oops
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Monday September 15 2014, @07:34PM
Lithium is kinda meh. I prefer elements with a little more zing to them like fluorine.
(not that fluoride in water/toothpaste crap, I'm talking straight fluorine FTW)
/sark
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @08:06PM
But there certainly is a loginwall...
(Score: 1) by resignator on Monday September 15 2014, @08:08PM
That's why I always add at least one rechargeable lithium battery to my glass of water. Double A's work fine but for those extra depressing days I use a 9volt.
(Score: 2) by WillR on Monday September 15 2014, @08:22PM
Well, yeah, even in America you can't patent a metal ion.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday September 15 2014, @08:28PM
"The idea of putting a mind-altering drug in the drinking water is the stuff of sci-fi, terrorist plots and totalitarian governments."
I thought this was going down the track of the recent tramadol story, where so much has been pumped into the cattle that their contaminated pee gets adsorbed into plant roots and there was this crazy idea its naturally occurring in the roots of some plants in south america or where ever it was.
I suppose we're better off putting synthetic lithium salts into the water supply than having human users just pee into the water supply.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @09:58PM
The story of Tramadol naturally occuring in a tree root actually appears to be true. Here is a pretty good analysis of the original research paper:
http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2013/10/01/tramadol_turns_out_to_be_a_natural_product.php/ [corante.com]
Here is a very interesting paper about the Rubiaceae family to which it belongs and the multitude of traditional uses of these plants in Africa:
http://scialert.net/fulltext/?doi=pjbs.2011.149.169&org=11/ [scialert.net]
There is so much to be studied in this family which I believe will lead to the isolation of many novel, useful alkaloids.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @09:23PM
That's how I like my cattle.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Monday September 15 2014, @10:10PM
“There has been no war here. It was the Pax. The G23 Paxilon hydrochloride acid that we added to the air processors. It was supposed to calm the population, weed out aggression. Well it worked. The people here stopped fighting, and then they stopped everything else. They stopped going to work, they stopped breeding, talking, eating. There’s 30 million people here and they all just let themselves die.”
Reavers, we'll make 'em!
(Score: 1) by MostCynical on Monday September 15 2014, @11:56PM
Who needs drugs? We already have tv* making us unfit, brain dead sheep..
http://newsroom.heart.org/news/watching-too-much-tv-may-increase-risk-of-early-death-in-adults [heart.org]
http://sharpbrains.com/blog/2014/07/01/no-time-for-brain-fitness-solution-watch-less-tv/ [sharpbrains.com]
* including streaming services, passive internet content, etc etc
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday September 16 2014, @03:11AM
Great, Don't deal with reality, just drug the people..