In a press release from BSMS, the study’s lead author Professor Anjum Memon said: “It is promising that higher levels of trace lithium in drinking water may exert an anti-suicidal effect and have the potential to improve community mental health.”
Part funded by King’s College London, the study is a meta-analysis of three decades of research in Austria, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, UK, Japan and USA.World News
It concludes that lithium’s “protective” abilities could be further tested by “randomised community trials of lithium supplementation of the water supply” in communities with high prevalence of mental health conditions and risk of suicide.
Deliberately lacing the water supply with a mind-altering chemical in some zones might seem like something out of a science fiction novel, but the authors of the report – as other scientists have said before them – think it’s an idea worth experimenting.
Hellbound and Down 