I don’t see anyone previously posted this - but I really found this OptiSpan podcast excellent on the subject of Lithium (and Rapamycin). Very interesting stuff!
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i thought so too. Particularly their speculations on the mechanisms involved. Do you know the test they refer to? (from memory it was for tau and amyloid fragment to amyloid ratio).
Interested to see if it accessible on the UK
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Yes I do … it is here. Physician ordered and discounted through UltaLabs is $949
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Some light on what lithium does:
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Lithium just went mainstream…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025/08/06/lithium-reverses-alzheimers-mice/
Ok, so planning on starting 1 mg a day.
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I’ve been using it off and on for years. I think it takes off the happy edge too. My mother always thought I was too happy…I do enjoy life, the lithium takes that off and makes me more normal which I consider bad.
If times are tough, it comes through big and helps to stay steady in the storm. I take 5mg.
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That does not seem like a bad thing.
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Kind of an old thread, I hope it’s fine to post here, but I was looking into this and am a bit confused on the dosing.
For example, many people seem to be taking “5mg” lithium orotate. So what are we really talking about here? Does this mean 5mg elemental lithium from a much higher amount of orotate, or just 5mg orotate which would be a very low amount of elemental lithium?
I found this supplement advertising “5mg” but to me it seems to be 5mg orotate, meaning like 0.2mg elemental, right?
https://nl.iherb.com/pr/kal-lithium-orotate-5-mg-60-vegcaps/70121
But then I also found this other supplement advertising 125mg orotate, meaning about 5mg elemental?
https://www.super-nutrition.com/nl--Voedingssupplementen--Lithium-Orotate-125-mg--H165#composition
Or is the wording just different between the two and is the second one just as strong as the first one (about 5mg elemental each), not 25 times as strong (0.2mg vs 5mg elemental)?
I asked my psychiatrist if I could get it prescribed for depression but I’m not bipolar and there is a lot of monitoring involved with clinical dosage so she didn’t think it a good idea, but maybe just taking supplements is fine for me as an alternative just for longevity reasons. But like I said, I find the dosage confusing.
Personally I was thinking I could take the second one I linked twice daily, meaning 250mg orotate, ie ~9.5mg elemental daily. It is much lower than clinical dosing for bipolar, but also a lot higher than what is found in water or other negligible sources which I don’t think will make much of a difference. The main reason I’m interested in lithium is its effect of slowing down the shortening of telomeres.
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I think the first one is 5mg lithium from orotate and carbonate and they don’t say how much of each. The second is 10 mg and it’s from orotate.
I don’t think lithium is the best for depression. I would say to spend more time in the sun mostly around noon. Let it damage your skin, you can take it. You will feel better.
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Yeah that’s what I figured . But strange that it’s so unclear especially since you need to be careful with dosing lithium… The second is actually 125mg so also around 5mg elemental. It’s just that the instructions say to take it twice daily (so 250mg ie around 10mg elemental). So both seem to be pretty much identical products if our reasoning is indeed correct.
I already take bupropion occasionally for depression (not all the time because it makes me feel like I’m on speed kind of, which I don’t like), and I can get an ssri if I want to (considering it atm). Plus I follow the usual non medicinal advice from my psychologist like finding hobbies and all that, so it was never my intention to take it primarily for depression. I just thought if I could obtain it that way that would be convenient. Our doctors here aren’t really prone to handing out meds if you just say it’s for some debatable and experimental anti aging reasons you see.
Btw I take vitamin D but avoid the sun as much as possible because I really want to prevent skin aging. It’s actually how I found this community in the first place.
EDIT: The advertised amount is usually the elemental, so 5mg is fine to buy. In case anyone else is from Europe and has issues with sales restrictions, I ended up getting this one:
Costs only ~8 EUR for 60 capsules of 5mg elemental from orotate and I think they ship to all the EU/EEA.
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