A brand new examine revealed that some explicit medicines like lithium can cut back the chance of dementia. Particularly people who find themselves taking lithium common foundation are at decrease danger of getting dementia.
Present state of affairs of dementia
The threats of dementia rise with age. Particularly folks over 50 are at excessive danger of dementia. Greater than 55 million folks at the moment are affected by dementia. the World Well being Group (WHO) estimates that it’s going to attain 10 million circumstances yearly which is an alarming charge certainly. On this state of affairs, the brand new knowledge could deliver a constructive influence on dementia remedy.
Credit score: verywellhealth
What’s lithium?
Medical doctors use lithium to deal with sufferers with bipolar dysfunction. The Federal Drug Administration has not but accredited this drug for the remedy of despair. Just lately PLOS Drugs printed a analysis report the place the researchers discovered an affiliation between taking lithium and lowering the speed of creating dementia. Moreover, earlier physicians have used lithium as a remedy for dementia. Nonetheless, there was no population-level analysis to attract a connection between lithium and dementia.
Credit score: healthjade
Well being specialists use lithium as the primary drug for psychological sickness. The psychiatrist John F. J. Cade launched this drug in 1940. He injected 10 bipolar sufferers with lithium and probably the most spectacular half was that they had been enhancing regularly. Medical doctors used this drug as a first-line remedy for bipolar dysfunction remedy. However there are a number of unintended effects of utilizing this drugs. Headache, nausea, and adjustments in temper and urge for food are some widespread unintended effects of this drug. Moreover, some sufferers could expertise rarer issues comparable to lithium toxicity.
Current examine
Researchers in contrast information of sufferers who had been over the age of fifty. The researchers analyzed the information in regards to the 548 sufferers who took lithium and 29,070 sufferers who didn’t take the drug. As well as, the information had been collected from secondary psychological well being providers in Cambridge and Peterborough Nationwide Well being Service (NHS) Basis Belief.
Professor Rob Howard stated, “There’s an enzyme referred to as glycogen synthase kinase, or GSK3, which is concerned within the irregular phosphorylation of tau protein, which makes tangles in Alzheimer’s illness. And lithium is a potent inhibitor of that enzyme…This isn’t the primary examine to have proven the hyperlink between lithium use and diminished potential danger.”
Credit score: americanorchardsaz
The director of World Sciences Initiatives, Alzheimer’s Affiliation Christopher Weber stated, “Total after I appeared on the paper, I used to be very and enthusiastic about it as a result of we’re at all times new methods to know and probably deal with, gradual, and forestall dementia. And that is simply one other avenue that scientists are …to scale back your dementia danger.”
