I definitely wouldn’t have told them. In fact, they always ask me everything I’m taking and I usually don’t tell certain things because I know they wouldn’t understand and it would just complicate things.
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I lowered my lithium orotate dose to 5mg 3x a week. I was finding daily was making me too flat emotionally when combined with lemon balm herb capsules.
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I never tell either. The only issue is concern over my low white cell count. (Caused by Rapamycin)
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Clinical trial evidence supporting lithium aspartate therapy for slowing Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s (via Doctor Tom)
In the comments under the video somone posted about the Harvard study using lithium orotate, and Dr. Tom responded that they used aspartate because of concerns about cancer in animals subjected to lithium orotate:
Here is the link Dr. Tom appended to his reply:
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Of course, he’s biased because he’s selling lithium aspartate. I perused the abstracts from the rat studies and they used high doses of orotate (minimum 0.5% total dietary orotic acid to cause problems), and the 2009 European paper talks about concerns regarding multi-gram daily doses in patients taking calcium and magnesium orotate supplements, which could expose them to as much as 11 GRAMS/day of orotate.
By contrast, my once daily lithium orotate capsule with 5mg elemental lithium contains a grand total of 112 mg of orotate.
Interesting that he repeatedly uses the low-dose argument to correctly espouse the safety of lithium, but suddenly he forgets to use the exact same logic when discussing lithium orotate, which just happens to be a competing product to what he is selling.
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This is not directed at you, but the YouTube video contains typical YouTube BS, and even Harvard doctors are not above sloppy reasoning or under-researched decisions. Dr. Jon makes many questionable statements in his YouTube videos, but Matt K and others don’t seem to call him on it. Probably due to Jon’s credentials, and Jon uses body language and vocal tones and facial expressions to indicate to you that he is the smartest man in the room. (Yeah, can’t stand the guy even when he is right. In this case he is not right about lithium orotate VS lithium aspartate.)
Good thing that I am retired; otherwise, I wouldn’t respond to this typical YouTube BS.
You do not have to read the rest of this post. The bottom line is that you can safely take your lithium orotate in less than 100mg per kilogram of body weight per day.
There is not one iota, not one shred of evidence that lithium orotate causes any cancer in humans, based on preclinical toxicologic evaluation of lithium orotate and several decades of thousands of people supplementing with lithium orotate daily. “There have been no reported cases of death or serious side effects in over 40 years of use in North America.”
The available evidence does NOT support the conclusion that lithium aspartate is less carcinogenic than lithium orotate.
“Dr. Tom responded that they used aspartate because of concerns about cancer in animals subjected to lithium orotate.”
The authors who chose lithium aspartate over lithium orotate made a BS assumption.
linking lithium orotate to orotic acid." It is critical to distinguish that orotic acid is not an initiator (it does not cause the initial DNA mutation) but a promoter, meaning it stimulates the growth of already-initiated or pre-cancerous cells." This risk, however, is highly dose-dependent. The tumor-promoting effects in rats were observed at massive high concentrations, such as 1% of the diet, or doses exceeding 100 mg/kg. The amount of orotic acid ingested during typical lithium orotate supplementation (e.g., ~10–15 mg/kg) is estimated to be significantly below this carcinogenic threshold.
The available evidence does not provide any basis to conclude that lithium aspartate is less carcinogenic than lithium orotate. This assessment is based on a complete absence of data for lithium aspartate.
But, I digress; the point is:
Cancer risk: There are no human studies linking LO to increased cancer risk. Concern sometimes arises from orotic acid (OA), the anion in LO, which promotes liver carcinogenesis in initiated rat models at high dietary levels and prolonged exposure;
“Cancer risk: No studies assessing carcinogenicity of LA were found. There is no evidence that LA is less carcinogenic than LO; the data to make that comparison simply do not exist.”
A 2021 toxicological evaluation found that lithium orotate was neither mutagenic nor clastogenic in bacterial and mammalian tests, and showed no genotoxicity in mice, with a no observed adverse effect level determined at 400 mg/kg body weight per day ScienceDirect.*
“LO has more historical mentions (open/uncontrolled studies, toxicology work, surveys; recent microdose imaging). LA currently has one notable RCT (negative) and little else. Overall, LO is studied more extensively, but still with limited high-quality human efficacy data.”
Conclusion:
Association with cancer risk: There is no human evidence that LO or LA increases cancer risk; OA has rodent tumor-promotion activity in initiated livers at high, prolonged intake, so extrapolation to microdose LO is not justified without data. LA has no carcinogenicity data—there is no evidence supporting a claim that LA is less carcinogenic than LO.
A substantial body of evidence suggests that the lithium ion itself possesses anti-carcinogenic or cancer-preventive properties. This activity is observed across molecular, preclinical, and large-scale human epidemiological studies.
Comparative Volume and Focus of Scientific Literature
Lithium aspartate has not been studied to the same extent as lithium orotate; in fact, its foundational research base is almost nonexistent.
The research on lithium orotate is sparse, controversial, and dated. It was “largely abandoned since the late 1970s” due to studies suggesting high-dose kidney toxicity (a finding that is now contested). Most significantly, there is a near-total lack of modern clinical data. The literature contains “only two extant human clinical studies” on lithium orotate, and these possess “severe methodological drawbacks” that preclude any conclusions about its clinical effects. As one source notes, "
The research base for lithium aspartate is even smaller and lacks the historical, preclinical foundation seen with lithium orotate. A critical data gap exists: “no studies comparing the pharmacokinetics of lithium aspartate and Li2CO3 [lithium carbonate] have been conducted thus far”.1 This absence of basic pharmacokinetic data is a significant deficiency.
The research on LO is virtually non-existent, lacking even basic pharmacokinetic studies and consisting only of a few recent, small-scale, and largely inconclusive human pilot trials.
Lithium aspartate has been studied far less than LO: LO benefits from broader animal data, user surveys (n=211), and decades of use; LA has only 1 completed human RCT (negative for long COVID).
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Yeah, I know, I’m just posting an interesting study on LA impact on AD and PD. I’m not endorsing LA being better than LO! Also, I think there is some confusion. The yt video is about the study and LA vs LO claims by Dr. Tom, not Jon Brenner. The confusion comes from there being a picture of Jon in the screen capture of the comment under the Dr. Tom video, but that’s just an accident - when the Dr. Tom yt video ended, yt put in a suggestion for the next video (the Jon Brenner video) for the viewer to watch, so it had nothing to do with the Dr. Tom video, and there was no connection between the comments about LA vs LO, as Jon Brenner said nothing about that. Just wanted to clear that up😁.
That said, yes, I am not at all convinced about LA being safer or better than LO, as indeed if there are not many LO studies, there are even less LA studies. In any case, I don’t think the LO rat cancer studies are relevant to humans at ordinary doses at all. FWIW, I personally completely ignore that, and take LO daily. YMMV.
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Your post made me look up orotate (orotic acid) and I found it is in the pyrimidine biosynthesis pathway. There is an interesting issue about the balance between nucleotides and if there is too high a quantity of pyrimidines that can cause mutations in DNA. I have not read up on exactly what circumstances that happens.
Interestingly, however, there is also an issue with too low quantities particulary of cytosine (which is normally the least available pyrimidine as opposed to thymine) and that this leads in the mitochondria to rNTPs being misincorporated into mtDNA. Hence there may be an argument for a small supplementation of orotate to top this up in some way.
Interestingly, however, therefore a large concentration could cause mutations in mtDNA and that could cause cancer. (remembering I agree with Thomas Seyfried that a lot of cancer is from metabolic issues).
Asking chatGPT about the pathway I find aspartate a couple of steps before orotate.
chatGPT:
One-line summary:
Orotate is the oxidized ring intermediate produced by mitochondrial DHODH; in the cytosol, UMPS converts it with PRPP into OMP → UMP, from which the cell makes UTP and CTP (and dTMP for DNA).
BTW I supplement with LO at the moment and I intend to continue.
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EFSA has a NOAEL of 50 mg/kg/day
I have also asked questions of Claude (as I am comparing LLMs). It took a lot longer to answer, but perhaps gave a better answer.
Conclusions:
Context for Supplement Users
Most orotate supplements (lithium orotate, magnesium orotate, etc.) contain much smaller amounts of orotic acid than the doses that showed effects in rats. For typical lithium orotate supplementation, the amount of orotic acid ingested (less than 1000 mg or about 10-15 mg/kg) is unlikely to contribute to cancer, as tumor promotion was observed at concentrations exceeding 100 mg/kg PubMed Central.
The evidence suggests the cancer concern is based entirely on high-dose rat studies, with no human data and questions about species-specificity. However, regulatory authorities consider the safety margin inadequate for approving these supplements in some jurisdictions.
Claude and chatGPT agree that most orotate in the diet is in milk and dairy products, but when fermented the orotate levels go down.
chatGPT " Short version: most people get tens of milligrams per day—almost entirely from milk/dairy. A glass (250 mL) of cow’s milk typically supplies ~15–20 mg orotate; heavy dairy intake (e.g., 1 L milk) is ~70–80 mg/day. Little comes from non-dairy foods."
claude: Typical Daily Intake
For someone drinking 1 liter of milk per day, they would consume approximately 80-120 mg of orotic acid from milk alone.
Other dietary sources include organ meats (heart and liver), vegetables like carrots and beets, and other dairy products Bulk SupplementsHealthMatters.io. The total dietary intake for most people is probably in the range of 100-200 mg per day.
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For someone drinking 1 liter of milk per day , they would consume approximately 80-120 mg of orotic acid from milk alone.
I drink lots of milk (several glasses in a day), eat cheese and eat lots of meat daily. So, I am getting a good bit of LO on top of my 10 mg nightly supplement.
I don’t think orotic acid has lithium. It’s just the media used to bind with lithium in Lithium Orotate, I believe. So milk is not upping your lithium dose.
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Exactly. However, rotate is an interesting foodstuff which probably has an U shaped curve.
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A little Sunday chat with ChatGPT 5, because Sunday football is not on yet and I feel the need to blog.
I did a ChatGPT 5 and Gemini search, paid versions, with this prompt:
“List both common and uncommon dietary supplements that have been associated with cancer development or risk in humans, through any mechanism or reported evidence. Clearly differentiate between supplements with robust evidence and those with only limited or preliminary reports. For each supplement, briefly summarize the type of association (e.g., increased risk, potential protective effect, conflicting evidence) and indicate the source or quality of evidence (e.g., meta-analysis, case reports, observational studies). Limit the output to dietary supplements with human data or strong human-relevant reports. If the evidence is particularly ambiguous or controversial, flag this clearly”.
Though there are many supplements with increased risk of cancer, it is entirely dose dependent.
I won’t list them all, but they include beta-carotene, vitamin E, vitamin B6/B12 (in smokers), calcium (high intake/supplement), multivitamins (very high use), zinc (high-dose, long-term), and comfrey tea. As the supplement list is entirely dose dependent, none have been taken off the market
Limited the list to supplements with human evidence suggesting increased cancer risk. "For lithium (including orotate), I couldn’t find human data."
The thing is, supplements taken by humans over a period of time tend to put up a red flag for cancer association. Of the supplements I listed, and there are many more, they are weak associations. Of the ones listed, only beta-carotene showed any significant association, and that was caught fairly quickly because people were taking it in high doses, especially fair-skinned people like me.
Beta-carotene is widely used as a food colorant.
“Observational studies link higher fruit/vegetable intake and higher plasma β-carotene with lower risks of lung and some other cancers, and influential papers (e.g., Peto and colleagues in 1981) propose β-carotene as a key protective factor. This, plus its role as a provitamin A antioxidant, drives widespread supplement use in the 1980s–early 1990s.”
“1994 (first clear signal of harm at high daily doses): ATBC trial. In 29,133 male smokers given 20 mg/day β-carotene, lung cancer incidence increased (≈18%) and overall mortality rose (≈8%) vs. no β-carotene after 5–8 years; this was the first large randomized evidence that high-dose daily β-carotene could increase certain cancer risks in high-risk groups.”
The highest daily dose of β-carotene supplements that I could find on Amazon was 7.5 mg/day.
“Some people did take high-dose β-carotene (me) specifically to tint their skin. The effect (carotenoderma/carotenemia) shifts skin toward yellow-orange rather than the brown of a melanin suntan. Controlled studies and reviews show that daily β-carotene can measurably change skin color within ~8–12 weeks; however, most commercial “tanning pills” historically relied on a different carotenoid (canthaxanthin), which the FDA does not approve for this use.”
Yes, silly me jumping on the beta-carotene bandwagon. Note: this was before the internet was widely used. The hype was mostly spread by various magazines, like Men’s Health.
Since I was always looking for a suntan (I don’t tan; I just burn), I took it in massive doses for several weeks. I found no subjective betterment in skin tone, so I stopped taking it. Fortunately I didn’t develop any cancers after more than thirty years.
I am only telling you this because the link and risk for you developing cancer from any supplement you take, including lithium orotate, which I have been taking for over thirty years, is very low indeed.
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My view is that Thomas Seyfried is right and that cancer is mainly a mitochondrial issue. I have been communicating with him recently about the role of the isoforms PKM1 and PKM2 in this, but whichever way it seems clear that a lot of cancer is mitochondrial. (it may be 100%, but I don’t know).
Lots of things affect the mitochondria.
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I like dilithium crystals. Seem to be working for Bill Shatner 
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I feel like not taking low dose lithium orotate because you’re worried about cancer is like not crossing the street to pick up an $100 bill on the other side because you’re afraid of a car hitting you while you cross. The potential reward greatly exceeds the tiny risk.
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Incidentally, it’s even funnier (what I wrote about) when you see it written down on the form.they gave me:
The big black arrows point to things they prescribed to me. The updated version of this, after I corrected them (multiple times), is a lot better; but it causes error messages in the online version, because they
don’t have it in their records. The wording could also have been better.
Addendum: I had to retake that photo, because some personal info leaked through the page behind it. It’s all gone now in this version.
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Some results from the LATTICE trial for the effect of Lithium on Alheimer’s have been posted in clinicaltrials.gov:
https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT03185208?tab=results#outcome-measures
Unfortunately it seems while the effect size is substantial, it’s mostly statistically insignificant (large p-values). There are 80 patients in the trial. I would have assumed, that the trial runners would have taken care of including sufficient numbers to achieve statistical power.
What is missing is the conversion rate from MCI to AD. This is commonly done as an aggregate score, but is not yet posted online. So it’s still possible that the final publication reports a successful trial.
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Avoiding MCI is almost as important as avoiding DM. Another reason to supplement with lithium!
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We discussed the LATTICE failure above: Lithium Supplementation - #386 by adssx
My guess is that lithium orotate should have been used.
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