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Investigators in Denmark conducted a population-based, case-control study to investigate the effects of lithium in drinking water on rates of dementia. They compared estimated exposure to lithium in 73,731 patients with an inpatient or outpatient diagnosis of dementia of any kind and 733,653 controls (median age, 80). They estimated mean lithium exposure in drinking water since 1986 for all participants using actual levels measured in 42% of waterworks and interpolation of the rest.
Compared with a reference level of 2–5 µg/L (the lowest quartile of exposure), slight increases in drinking water lithium concentration (to 5.1–10 µg/L) were associated with a significantly increased risk for dementia; however, people living in areas with documen…