In The News: Lithium for Alzheimer's Disease
In The News: A Weekly Update by Mindy Aisen, MD aisen@usc.edu
Why are we posting "In The News"?
As news coverage of Alzheimer's Disease (AD) continues to grow, we want to help our readers examine scientific claims and understand whether there will soon be a safe and beneficial treatment available for AD and related dementias.
We will regularly comment on both consumer-focused media stories and more scientific ones, like today. Our readers will learn whether the physicians and scientists at the USC Epstein Family Alzheimer's Therapeutic Research Institute recommend these therapies.
USC Epstein Family ATRI is always exploring new potential therapies for care and cure. We conduct rigorous double blind, placebo controlled trials of medications only after extensive preliminary research shows there is sufficient safety and efficacy data. These clinical trials are necessary to ascertain whether new treatments could be of genuine benefit to people with AD.
Today's Media Post:
Can Lithium Orotate Prevent Alzheimer's Disease?
This appeared in Medscape (Manson on Women's Health) on January 28, 2026.
Dr. Manson summarized the work of Dr. Bruce Yankner of Harvard Medical School and his findings published in the journal NATURE.
Dr. Yankner is a distinguished scientist who has dedicated a career to the basic science underlying dementia. His basic science research has concluded that in the brains of persons with Alzheimer's Disease there are lower levels of Lithium than in those who are cognitively normal. Of note: he tested levels of 26 other metals that are present in brain tissue.
He followed up on these findings by testing mice. Mice given a lithium restricted diet developed many brain changes and cognitive decline consistent with that found in human Alzheimer's Disease.
Also, his team found that a Lithium compound "Lithium Orotate" prevented cognitive decline and neuropathological brain changes in mine.
Conclusions: Lithium Orotate may be a future treatment for humans, but further research is needed. Also, it is not safe to take Lithium Carbonate for a condition that is not yet indicated. Please discuss this with your physician.
What is necessary?: Randomized controlled human trials of Lithium Orotate for prevention of ADRD.
Caution: What is seen in the laboratory cannot be determined to be safe or effective for human beings without extensive safety and efficacy trials.
Also, Lithium Carbonate, currently an effective treatment marketed for some with bipolar disease can be highly toxic in the geriatric population, and should never be given without careful medical supervision to anyone regardless of age.
Other treatments may emerge as scientists collect more information. You may hear about these in the news. Though exciting scientifically, we do not yet have sufficient information to use these for testing in people. We continue to monitor the data emerging from the basic science community and are in frequent communication with them.
Would you like more detail? Please read "Lithium and Alzheimer's Disease" by Dr. Rafii, one of ATRI's key scientists.
