Lithium in drinking water reduces suicide rates – possibly also as a result of medicine residue

A study carried out back in June 2011 at the MedUni Vienna has shown that lithium contained in drinking water could reduce suicide rates. Previously, researchers had assumed that the majority of this lithium came from natural sources, leached out of rocks and stones. According to Nestor Kapusta from the University Department of Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy at the MedUni Vienna, new data has indicated that residue from prescribed lithium medication is finding its way into aquifers.

26 oct 2013--Says Kapusta: "The light metal lithium has been used in psychiatry for 60 years as a mood stabiliser and to prevent depression. It is also excreted out of the body and enters the groundwater or is not filtered out by the sewage treatment plants." The psychiatrist predicts that regions with high lithium prescribing rates may have a type of "cohort protection" in place: "A high density of psychiatrists and high levels of prescribing could mean more lithium in the drinking water, which could also have a positive impact on untreated individuals." Jakob Klein from the Suicide Research Group at the MedUni Vienna is currently working on this study.

High lithium levels in drinking water means lower suicide rate

Even in the study carried out two years ago based on 6,460 samples of drinking water in 99 Austrian districts, it was discovered that high lithium levels in drinking water tended to produce a lower suicide rate in that area. This indicates that lithium can have measurable effects even as a trace element. Says Kapusta: "Some researchers now even maintain that lithium could be essential for humans."

A current study in the USA has demonstrated contamination of the groundwater and drinking water from the tap with numerous types of medication residue, illustrating how seriously the build-up of drugs in drinking water needs to be taken. Says Kapusta: "In the case of lithium, this would produce a potentially positive effect. However it would be far too premature to suggest that lithium should be added to drinking water. Further research is definitely needed on this." Although low levels of lithium in drinking water are not expected to cause any side effects compared to therapeutic doses (including kidney and thyroid problems), there are no studies to confirm this.

Says Kapusta: "Lithium is first and foremost not a panacea, even though some reports portray it as such." It has been discovered, for example, that lithium has a positive effect on the growth of new brain cells not just in adults, but also in embryos. It is however not yet clear what effect long-term exposure to the trace element can have on pregnant women and children. This would require urgent fundamental research, discouraging any thoughts of supplementation for the time being, says the MedUni Vienna expert.

Lithium could also be of significance in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease or dementia: the element appears to deposit itself in the brain, more in the white matter than in the grey matter. Conversely, it is known that people receiving lithium treatment produce more grey matter. "Alzheimer's disease can be associated with the destruction of and changes to white matter that lithium could help to counteract," says the MedUni Vienna researcher.

Provided by Medical University of Vienna

Baby boomers raise midlife suicide rate

Unmarried, non-college graduates at particular risk

Baby boomers appear to be driving a dramatic rise in suicide rates among middle-aged people, a new study finds.

27 sept 2010--The suicide rate for middle-aged people – a group considered relatively protected from suicide and with historically stable suicide rates – took an upward jump between 1999 and 2005, according to research by sociologists Ellen Idler of Emory University and Julie Phillips of Rutgers University.

Their study has been published in the September/October issue of the journal Public Health Reports.

"The findings are disturbing, because they're a reversal of a long-standing trend," Idler says, noting that the suicide rate for the U.S. population overall has been declining for decades. And people aged 40-59, in particular, have long had a moderate suicide rate.

The baby boomers, people born between 1945 and 1964, have broken that pattern. "This is a striking new trend," says Phillips, a social demographer. "Since the 1930s and up to the 1990s, suicide rates among middle-aged people – people aged 40 to 59 – were declining or pretty stable. But after 2000, this picture changed dramatically."

By 2000, most people aged 40 to 59 were baby boomers and the suicide rate started climbing steadily for these middle-age ranges. Idler and Philips found significant increases of more than 2 percent per year for men, and more than 3 percent per year for women, from 1999 to 2005. (By 2005, all middle-aged people were baby boomers.)

The post-1999 increase has been particularly dramatic for those who are unmarried and those without a college degree, the analysis showed. For example, from 2000 to 2005, the suicide rate jumped nearly 30 percent for men and women aged 50 to 59 with some college but no degree. Middle-aged people with a college degree appeared largely protected from the trend.

The baby boomers also experienced higher suicide rates during their adolescence and young adulthood, doubling the rate for those age groups at the time. Their suicide rate then declined slightly and stabilized, before beginning to increase again in midlife.

"You might think that the higher rates in adolescence would lead to lower rates later because the most suicide prone people would be gone but that doesn't appear to be the case," Idler says. "Clinical studies often show that knowing someone who committed suicide is considered a risk factor for later doing it yourself, and that may be one factor here. The high rates in adolescence could actually be contributing to the high rates in middle age."

Higher rates of substance abuse and the onset of chronic diseases are among other possible factors in the rising baby boomer suicide rate. "As children, the baby boomers were the healthiest cohort that had ever lived, due to the availability of antibiotics and vaccines," Idler says. "Chronic conditions could be more of a rude awakening for them in midlife than they were for earlier generations."

Traditionally, midlife has been considered a time when people are at their peak of social integration. "We need to pay attention to this new increase in suicides, during a period of life previously thought to be stable and relatively protected from suicide, and in an age group now occupied by extraordinarily large numbers of people," Idler says.

Data for the study were drawn from the National Center for Health Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau. Preliminary data from 2006 and 2007, the latest time that statistics are available, indicate that the upward pattern in midlife suicide is continuing, Idler says.

Japan's suicide rate remains high

By CARL FREIRE, Associated Press WriterFri Nov 9, 3:48 AM ET
Japan's employers should provide mental health services to workers suffering from depression and other illnesses, the government said Friday after reporting that more than 30,000 people killed themselves last year.
In its first annual report on suicide and suicide prevention measures, the Cabinet Office said 32,155 people killed themselves in 2006, the 9th straight year the figure has exceeded 30,000.
The total number of suicides represents a drop of 397 from the previous year, the government said. Still, Japan's suicide rate ranks 9th highest in the world, the government added, citing World Health Organization data. Lithuania had the highest rate, followed by Belarus and Russia, while the U.S. ranked 43.
Health problems were believed to factor in almost 50 percent of the Japan's suicides in 2006, followed by money problems and household difficulties, the report said. Forty-eight percent of those who killed themselves were unemployed, it said.
Suicides first passed the 30,000 mark in 1998 during an economic slump that left many bankrupt, jobless and desperate.
"This is a problem that needs to be dealt with comprehensively by society," government spokesman Nobutaka Machimura said at a news conference.
The central government and local authorities should work together to implement a law approved in June that calls on employers to offer mental health services to employees, Machimura said.
Other measures implemented by the government in June aim to tackle unemployment and filter Web sites that promote suicide. The government's goal is to cut the suicide rate by 20 percent in 10 years.