3 ms·
Man, that's fascinating, full study here [1]. I wonder how the Lithium is entering the food chain? Given they've tested drinking water, food, and air. Dust fr
by grumpy-de-sre 2y ago
Man, that's fascinating, full study here [1].
I wonder how the Lithium is entering the food chain? Given they've tested drinking water, food, and air.
Dust from processing? occupational exposure? unscrupulous recycling operations? but Lithium isn't a heavy metal so exposure would have to be ongoing.
Definitely need to test some additional cities and try and understand what's going on here. While concerning these blood levels are at 3% of the doses typically studied in psychiatric conditions. There's some potential public health benefits to low level lithium exposure actually [2] but at the same time you don't want to be unintentionally exposing pregnant folks.
1. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.4c12959 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.4c12959
2. https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.2020.128 https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.2020.128
- quacksilver 2y agoCheap and recycled cookware or cooking oil would be up there on the list of interesting things to check imho - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cml2kr9wkdzo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cml2kr9wkdzo - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutter_oil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutter_oil - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41370-024-00686-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41370-024-00686-7 Anywhere in the supply chain to a streetfood stall, or mom and pop restaurant or cornershop/bodega equivalent could have substitutions made that other people in the chain may not notice
- grumpy-de-sre 2y agoDo wonder if it could be unintentionally being alloyed into recycled aluminium etc. Though I'm not sure if that's more likely than upstream routes. Good old scientific mystery.
- sharpshadow 2y agoNice that you pointed out that lithium is actually necessary for the human body and having a deficiency is related to decreased neuronal potency. Unfortunately one can’t get lithium supplements in the regular shop only with special prescription from the pharmacy here in Europe.