A small study found people who received lithium, a drug commonly associated with the treatment of bipolar disorder, are less likely to develop dementia.
Summary: Source: University of Cambridge Researchers have identified a link suggesting that lithium could decrease the risk of developing dementia, which affects nearly one million people in the UK. The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, 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 analysis suggested 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. Their findings, reported in the journal PLoS Medicine, support the possibility that lithium could be a preventative treatment for dementia, and could be progressed to large randomized controlled trials. 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 the most common form. "The number of people with dementia continues to grow, which puts huge pressure on healthcare systems," said Dr. Shanquan Chen from Cambridge's Department of Psychiatry, the paper's first author. "It's been estimated that delaying the onset of dementia by just five years could reduce its prevalence and economic impact by as much as 40 percent." Previous studies have proposed 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. Lithium is a mood stabilizer usually prescribed for conditions such as bipolar affective disorder and depression. "Bipolar disorder and depression are considered to put people at increased risk of dementia, so we had to make sure to…