New intel re Lithium Orotate

@himanshug
Yes I am aware and thank you for confirming.

For instance the brand I currently take (Double Woods) describes the distinct dosage for Lithium and for only Lithium as “Lithium from Lithium Orotate”5mg per capsule.

And for what it is worth, LiO is nomenclature for Lithium Orotate used in a trial and the shorthand stuck with me.

I have a few brands I am confident in and choose my refills among them based on price. Swanson’s is among that group.

@himanshug just want to repeat that i can no longer edit the post above but it is not the Mass General study that has hit clinicaltrials.gov - it is the John Hopkins one led by a psychiatrist. And the dosage is more In range of bipolar doses than supplement range.

I take Lithium Orotate 1 mg sublingually 3 X per day because it works so quickly under the tongue to relieve my headaches. Does anyone else do this for headaches? My PCP knows I am doing this & is OK with it. He just doesn't want me to use it at this same time as my 5 mg Lisinopril pill for blood pressure. Does anyone think there is risk for inhaling the Lithium Orotate by possibly breathing in a small amount of the Lithium Orotate powder as open the capsule &I put it under my tongue?

Personally I wouldn't modify the drug delivery method. Sub-linguil seems to work quickly and I would fear inhaling it could introduce risk to sensitive sinus tissue. I wouldn't risk it.

I'm curious if anyone here's seeing change from LiO yet. When my wife was assessed by our neurologist recently and diagnosed MCI AD (confirming our fears), I dove into research. Obviously we agreed with the MD that the two approved meds aren't worth the side effects, and I stumbled onto the Harvard Med article.

After then "reading" the full linked Nature study, we both started at 6mg/day. Yesterday I upped it to 21mg just in case the OTC is actually less than that, and still no side effects so far. I'm also combining two widely recommended 5mg brands plus a 1mg brand. I've read extensively here after discovering it this week and if not just missed it or overloaded don't recall any such reports.

Clearly it's beyond early for me to see any change, but I actually have although the day to day and time of day variability is quite dramatic. Possibly more so. If anyone's interested I could post more about that and additional things that seem to possibly be helping.

So in summary, since many here have been on LiO for months I'm hoping you'll share any noticeable change. My impression is it could take 4 to 48 months or more if mice and LiC are any guide, but I'm hoping LiO may be more effective along with any other strategies.

Thanks and Best of luck everyone.

pb50 wrote: "A healthy lifestyle—including a Mediterranean-like diet, regular physical activity, and avoidance of smoking, excessive alcohol, social isolation, sleep disorders, and hearing loss—is an important means of preserving cognitive function in people at risk of developing dementia."

Absolutely agree! If I may add, even before MCI diagnosis we found Hydration to have a large and often immediate effect. Even though we've been drinking reverse osmosis water for years, over time it became clear we needed to drink more and more often. With life getting so much busier and more complex we just kept hydrating smaller amounts and more seldom. My impression is that aging well actually requires More clean water. Even so we're still struggling to regularly maintain even minimal hydration.

We also found ourselves eating more sweets, and that's a known inflammatory. Happily we've dialed that way back.

@plus our best clue regarding both dosage assumptions and duration of intervention required will come when Yankner (principal investigator of famed Harvard mouse study of LiO )and the rest of his team publish the human trial study details - expected literally any day. It is sponsored by Mass General and Brighams Womens and funded by philanthropic investors - a departure from most research involving drugs. But since the interventional drug is a readily available mineral, there is no financial incentive for big pharma to participate.

I don’t think I am worse
clinically. That is the strongest assertion i am confident enough to make. Maybe thats enough for now.

We all do what we can to manage our own symptoms and wait with baited breath for Yankner et al to get going.

@plus My wife has been on 10 mg of LiO for 8 months. I have seen no noticeable effect, and have not really expected to since it is hoped to only slow and not stop progression.
I am very interested if you have seen popsicle effects, even if there is day to day variability! What effects have you seen, and at what dose?
Thanks!

@pb50 While Yanker's study is the first good hope in years, it wouldn't surprise me if his reco is conservative. My own take is that anything below probably 40mg is totally safe, given how high the decades of LiC doses have been (even tho relatively little of it reaches the brain). The few in psych uses I've read about who are switching to LiO are still on higher doses w/o side effects (and celebrating that). Also the fact that the psych guy's trail you mentioned is starting low and incrementally going high, possibly based on that anecdotal experience. In other words, little to no risk w/possibly more gain. The one thing I'd like to know more about is metabolic processing for the long term, and that will presumably emerge during trials before it's a problem for my wife or me.

Side note: I've been getting presumably age related occasional mild hand tremors in some fine motor tasks the past few years. Having done some fine motor work in several of my careers, it's an unwelcome surprise. MD told me it's "normal" but reading Yanker's Nature article leads me to wonder if it could be lithium deficiency (maybe neural/spine and not just brain, tho I have had some minor memory issues since passing 70). Thus one of the reasons I'm taking LiO too.

The one thing I DO worry about is how much if any LiO (or anything harmful) were getting in OTC capsules. That's why I'm splitting dose between brands. I'm hoping to get a neurologist LiO prescription, even if I have to pay a local compounding pharmacy.

Anyway, thanks for sharing your experience. Even if LiO is Slowing progression that's a big win. My take on the Nature article is that we can hope for eventual improvement. The big question mark there IMO is how Li and tau/plaques are cleared. That might require an additional intervention and trial. One among the reasons that for now improving hydration might Possibly help.

@ralpha4 The only "popsicle" effects were negative, back when we ate them a few summers ago. I really wonder if our decade of sweets contributed to the MCI and other symptoms now. But to your question (presuming "popscicle" = symptom spikes, I think it has more to do with other important variables like hydration and especially Sleep!

As you might guess, our sleep is erratic and when interrupted or insufficient her symptoms seem to Always be worse. My impression is that REM sleep is when toxins are best cleared. So I'm trying to stop our hydration <4hrs. before bed, and daytime <1hr before leaving home (clean public restrooms are few).

The biggest difference in her symptoms was when I'd read about compounds (various alkaloids as I recall) in coffee, tea and chocolate that can reduce MCI symptoms. I started us on strong instant coffee (Nescafe Classico, 2tsp for her 3 for me) followed by black tea (hers with 4-Ingredient organic oat milk to eliminate conflict with mine's protein in 2% milk), and one square or so each of TJ's 72% Pound Plus chocolate in case that caffeine & alkaloids also help (this was afew weeks before finding the Yanker article). The result:
BAM!! That very day she was again much more the M.A. college admin I married!

The change was so dramatic I stopped researching for a month or two, until symptoms began to re-appear and worsen. Luckily we'd already started prep for the AD slide, incl. Advance Directive after the formal MCI diagnosis. Starting LiO brought her back quite a bit again in most areas within a few days, but she's now having more variability most correlated with sleep/hydration as noted. It's possible that rapid improvement was related to slightly better sleep that LiO users have long reported. Sleep alas has again become more erratic and probably correlates with symptoms (yes, too bad I don't keep a detailed journal, but hey nor do most trials).

As for dose, I started with 4mg KAL + 1mg Pure Encaps. before breakfast, alternating days with SFI 4.8mg & the 1mg P.E. As stated, I'm suspicious of potency (& ingredients) of OTC despite those being among the 5 or so brands most highly rated. Side note: we were startled to find KAL at our Lazy Acres healthy grocer for