Lithium Found to Give Worms a Longer Life

Lithium is a well-established treatment for mood disorders such as bipolar disease and new research from the Buck Institute shows that it could be responsible for a longer lifespan in worms, leading to the questions of whether or not patients who are taking it for their mood disorder may be also taking something that could give them a longer lifespan also.

Even though it is extensively used, researchers have yet to pinpoint exactly how its therapeutic powers that protect neurons work. What is known is that lithium has a very limited therapeutic range and it has several dangerous side effects.

This research has taken a new path to try and find the answers. It used a relatively new field of science called Pharmocogenetics which is the study of how genetic factors can have an influence on how organisms react to different drugs.

One thing they were able to determine in this project is that when the lithium acted on the gene that controls the basic structure of the body's chromosomes by lowering its activity level, the worms lived longer.

The researchers believe that lithium has an effect on many different genes. IF they can get an understanding of what lithium's genetic impact is, they feel it will be possible to come up with a therapy that can make use of its ability to prolong life. One of the most important things they need to determine is if the ability of lithium to affect the lifespan is or are not directly related to its known job of protecting the neurons. The reason for this is that the aging process in humans is basically linked to diseases that originate in the neurons, neurodegenerative disease, but this is another field where the exact process is not fully understood. They feel that by studying compounds like lithium could lead the way in developing an understanding of the link between the diseases and growing old.

They are already on their way to determining this by studying tens of thousands of compounds to determine their effect on the aging process.