Well thats a way to control the population - drug’m.
So does Jack & water.
Well Lithium is the long time treatment for Manic Depression, but supposedly the effective dose is very close to the toxic dose.
Reminds me of Brave New World, Soma pills.
Oh, swell.
I’ll never drink city water.
I confess I have wondered what DC would be like if a little prozac were added to the water supply.
Tampering with our precious bodily fluids.
Lithium is not a drug. It is a trace mineral essential for brain health.
In large doses lithium is toxic. In this way it is similar to selenium, which is essential to health in trace amounts, but toxic in large amounts.
http://www.tahoma-clinic.com/lithium1.shtml
http://www.tahoma-clinic.com/lithium2.shtml
VOLUME 29 , NUMBER 9 -September 1998
Lithium?s mood-stabilizing effect is explained
Lithium works to curb both the elation and despondence that are the hallmark of manic depression by stabilizing levels of the neurotransmitter glutamate, according to new research in animals.
Lithium has been used for nearly 50 years to curb the dramatic mood swings experienced by people with bipolar disorder, but exactly how the drug worked was unclear until now.
It appears that lithium exerts a push?pull effect on glutamate, which is the primary excitatory neurotransmitter in 85 percent of the brain, according to research by pharmacologist Lowell Hokin and his colleagues at the University of Wisconsin Medical School.
Normally, to send a signal to a neighboring neuron, a nerve cell releases a flood of glutamate into the space between the two cells. Then to shut off the signal, the releasing neuron reabsorbs glutamate, pumping it back into the cell for reuse using a structure called a reuptake transporter.
Malfunctions in any part of this process can lead to inappropriate glutamate levels, which in turn may cause depression?in the case of too little glutamate?or mania?in the case of too much glutamate, the researchers postulate.
Based on studies in mice, the researchers find that lithium can both slow down the glutamate reuptake system, and speed it up. Indeed, when they exposed functioning slices of mouse brain to lithium, glutamate levels rose as reuptake slowed. In contrast, in live mice exposed to lithium for two weeks, glutamate dropped as reuptake increased. Overall, lithium appeared to stabilize glutamate levels within a narrow range, the researchers report in an article published in the July 7 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Vol. 95, No. 14, p. 8363?8368)