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In a 2017 study, Danish researchers (NEJM JW Psychiatry Nov 2017 and JAMA Psychiatry 2017; 74:1005) found a correlation between higher lithium concentrations in drinking water and a lower incidence of dementia over 28 years. The present research group attempted to replicate these results by correlating groundwater lithium concentrations in 174 U.S. counties with diagnoses of bipolar disorder or dementia over 7 years in public and private third-party payer databases involving 4.2 million adults.
Unadjusted rates of both disorders were significantly lower in counties with high (>40 µg/L) versus low (≤40 µg/L) groundwater lithium concentrations. However, differences were no longer significant after adjustment for healthcare resources and demogr…