High Doses Lithium Drugs Might Impair Neurological Function in Patients with Alzheimer's Disease
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Generally, antidepressant drugs become fully effective within three to six weeks after a person begins taking them. Physicians generally prescribe one of four major types of medication used to treat depression:
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- heterocyclics
- serotonin reuptake blockers
- MAO inhibitors
- lithium
Lithiam is an element which, when used as a medication, can stabilize fluctuating ups and downs of mood disorders by shifting the levels of water and electrolytes.Lithium is administered in a number of chemical salts of lithium, which are used primarily in the treatment of bipolar disorder as mood stabilizing drugs. They are also sometimes used to treat depression and mania. Lithium carbonate (Li2CO3), sold as Carbolith®, Cibalith-S®, Duralith®, Eskalith®, Lithane®, Lithizine®, Lithobid®, Lithonate®, Lithotabs® and Maniprex®, is the most commonly prescribed.
Newer antidepressant medications have become available, and more are being developed for the treatment of depression. The effectiveness of these drugs depends on general health, weight, metabolism, and other characteristics unique to that patient.
Lithium treatment is used to treat mania in bipolar disorder. Initially, lithium is often used in conjunction with antipsychotic drugs as it can take up to a week for lithium to have an effect. Lithium is also used as prophylaxis for depression and mania in bipolar disorder. Also, it is sometimes used for other disorders, like cycloid psychosis, unipolar depression, migraine and others. It is sometimes used as an "augmenting" agent, to increase the benefits of standard drugs used for unipolar depression. Lithium treatment was previously considered to be unsuitable for children, however more recent studies show its effectiveness for treatment of early-onset bipolar disorder in children as young as eight.
Too high a dose of lithium and other drugs that inhibit an enzyme called GSK-3 beta can impair, rather than improve, neurological function in patients with Alzheimer's disease and should be used with caution, a new study says.
Lithium is currently undergoing clinical trials as a treatment for Alzheimer's disease. It has been shown to be safe in treating people with manic depressive illness.
"People might think that if you make the inhibitor stronger and stronger, that would be better. Our in-vitro experiments show that you will have to be careful with how you use GSK-3 beta inhibitors, because if you use too much, it will interfere with and possibly kill neurons," study co-author Dr. William D. Snider, professor of neurology, cell and molecular physiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's School of Medicine, said in a prepared statement.
He and his colleagues were surprised by the findings of their study -- which used mouse neurons in cell culture -- because previous research has shown that certain doses of GSK-3 beta inhibitors improve neuronal function.
"It's known that when GSK-3 beta is inactivated, that tends to allow the processes inside the cell it regulates to function normally," Snider said.
The study, conducted by American, Canadian, and Japanese scientists, was funded by the U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
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