What Does Lithium Have to Do with Longevity?

Lithium is moving from the world of batteries into the latest longevity trend. The trace element enters the body through drinking water and food, and advocates of low-dose use say it may stimulate autophagy, the cell-cleaning process, while influencing inflammation, oxidative stress and cellular energy.

A 2025 Harvard study reportedly identified a connection between lithium and Alzheimer's disease, while experiments in mice reversed memory loss. Other studies have examined a possible link between lithium levels in drinking water and suicide rates. But these findings come from observational research and mouse models. It remains unclear whether the relationships are causal or coincidental, how much lithium the body actually needs and what functions the element performs in the body.

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Why is something missing? Are we no longer getting it through food because there is not enough in the soil? Or can we not absorb it optimally? Or can it not be transported to where we need it?

Jürgen Kasper, a physician and president of the Academy for Functional Holistic Medicine, raises the question of whether people may be receiving too little lithium through food, absorbing it poorly or failing to transport it to the places where it is needed. In his practice, he prescribes lithium only when brain fog, sleep disorders and depressive moods occur together. At doses of one to five milligrams of elemental lithium, he calls it “a game-changer.”

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Then it is a game-changer.

That approach differs sharply from lithium treatment for psychiatric conditions such as bipolar disorder, which has been used for decades at much higher doses. Those doses can impair thyroid and kidney function and may also cause nausea, diarrhea, tremors, fatigue and weight gain.

Kasper says patients increasingly arrive after reading about lithium's supposed benefits and wanting to try it. He strongly advises against self-medication. Lithium requires a prescription and is not authorized as a dietary supplement in the European Union. Peter Heinrich Lauda, a Vienna physician specializing in orthomolecular medicine, also warns that even a small overdose can cause serious side effects affecting the kidneys and other organ systems. He recommends precise serum and whole-blood testing. The article ends while quoting him on the tension between lithium's importance and toxicity.

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Lithium is particularly tricky. Even a small overdose can lead to sometimes serious side effects, not only in the kidneys but also in other organ systems.