Life Link's Monolith (Formely Lithium Orotate) 135mg 100Tabs
About Lithium Orotate Lithium orotate is a mineral salt that is normally found in small amounts in all living things. Each molecule of lithium orotate consists of a molecule of orotic acid in which one of the hydrogen atoms is replaced by a lithium atom.Orotate (orotic acid) is a biochemical substance made by all living cells. It is a necessary raw material for making the genetic material: RNA and DNA.12Some evidence suggests that lithium may be an essential trace mineral.1Lithium orotate was introduced as a supplement by Dr. Hans Nieper, the innovative German physician, who used it to treat depression, headaches, migraine, epilepsy, and alcoholism. Nieper considered orotates to be superior to carbonates, chlorides, sulfates, and other negative-charged ions as bioavailability enhancers for minerals like lithium.Other lithium salts have been used for more than a century to treat mania. During the first half of the 20th Century, however, lithium therapy fell out of fashion and was not rediscovered until 1949.2 Since then, it has become one of the mainstays in the treatment of "bipolar disorder" (the current euphemism for manic-depression).2During the past ten years a number of lab studies have kindled interest in the use of lithium for treating Alzheimer"s and other neurodegenerative diseases.3, 4What we can"t tell you In the U.S. and some other industrialized countries, government agencies like the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have adopted censorship as a method for intensifying their control over supplement users and their suppliers. Thus, FDA regulations prohibit us from telling you that any of our products are effective as medical treatments, even if they are, in fact, effective.Accordingly, we will limit our discussion of lithium orotate to a brief summary of relevant research, and let you draw your own conclusions about what medical conditions it may be effective in treating.Lithium and neurodegenerative diseases In 1997 a groundbreaking paper appeared in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, reporting that lithium interferes with a key process in the brain that damages nerve cells in Alzheimer"s disease. The researchers stated that "these findings could be exploited to develop a novel intervention for Alzheimer"s disease."5More recent studies in cell culture and lab animals have added weight to this prediction and found additional ways in which lithium protects nerve cells and stimulates the repair of damaged nerve tissue.3In a 2004 review of the subject, D.M. Chuang of the (U.S.) National Institutes of Health wrote: "The neuroprotective and neurotrophic actions of lithium have profound clinical implications. In addition to its present use in bipolar patients, lithium could be used to treat acute brain injuries such as stroke and chronic progressive neurodegenerative diseases."6 Examples of such diseases are Alzheimer"s, Huntington"s, ALS, Parkinson"s, and other less well-known conditions.Other possible applications of lithium orotate Sev