If you want to worry about something real investigate the ingredients in your deoderents, make-up, hair products, and perfumes - if you can. The big chemical corps behind those industries don't want to talk about what's in the crap you're smearing all over your bodies.
Yes...that is a conversation worth having to.
Regardless of whether you think Fluoride is beneficial or not...that does NOT justify mass medication of the population. What would you like to add to our water next? Prozac? I think the population seems a bit down in the dumps. Medical studies show Prozac helps with depression. LETS ADD IT TO THE WATER! It doesn't matter if YOU aren't depressed. Studies have shown that it helps with depression and SOME people might benefit from it. And it doesn't matter if YOU don't WANT to drink that in your water. Studies have shown that it won't harm you.
Actually, I think there was a crazy ass doctor who suggested adding Lithium to the water to help depression.What else shall we add to PREVENT diesease whether we need it or not.
Should we drug the drinking water? Adding lithium to the taps 'could lower suicide rates'
Lithium has been heralded by some experts as the next potential flouride, after scientists found suicide rates were lower in areas where the drinking water had higher concentrations of the element.
Researchers from the Medical University of Vienna compared the suicide rates in different regions of Austria with the natural lithium concentrations in the drinking water.
Time to supplement? Some scientists believe lithium could reduce suicide rates if traces were added to drinking water
The study, published in the British Journal of Pyschiatry, analysed a sample of 6,460 lithium measurements and then compared suicide rates across 99 districts.
In the 10 most lithium-depleted regions in Austria, the suicide rate was 16 per 100,000, but in the 10 most lithium-rich regions the suicide rate was just 11 per 100,000.
'This should stimulate further research in low-level effects of lithium,' lead author Dr Nestor Kapusta said.
It confirms research from 2009 that found the same inverse relationship between lithium levels and suicide rates in Japan.
Dr Jacob Appel, from Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, said the latest studies provided 'compelling' evidence of the mood-stabilising benefits of lithium.
'The theory is that lithium in trace amounts enhances the connectivity among neurons and having exposure over a lifetime makes the brain more happy,' he explained.
He said the U.S already supplemented the drinking water with flouride to prevent tooth decay and it would be relatively easy to add lithium, which is a naturally occurring element.
He added: 'People who oppose adding lithium to the drinking water in trace amounts don't go around advocating to strain the lithium from the drinking water from areas where it does exist.
'Why not give everyone the same benefit?'
Lithium is a very reactive metal: It only appears as a compound in nature and often appears in minerals that seep into water supplies
Dr Appel is not a lone voice on the subject. The idea was first mooted by Dr Gerhard Schauzer after he was inspired by the 'miracle spring' in his home town of Franzenbad in the Czech Republic.
In 1989, Dr Schauzer published a survey that looked at 27 counties in Texas over a decade. He found there was a consistent inverse relationship between lithium levels in water and the suicide, violent crime and rape rate.
But his proposal to supplement water supplies with lithium was not popular.
'People were convinced I was trying to impose mass mind control,' he told TheDaily.com.
'There was widespread ignorance about what lithium does.'
The professor at the University of California in San Diego said he still believed introducing it would be a 'great initiative.'
'People today are drinking water this is more and more thoroughly purified, to the point where it is devoid of nutritional benefit,' he said.
In high doses, lithium is an effective treatment for bipolar disorder. A study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry last month also found it helped slow the progression of memory loss - raising the possibility it could be used to prevent dementia.
However, Dr Appel was keen to stress that only traces of lithium would ever be added to drinking water.
'We are not talking about therapeutic amounts,' he said, adding that a person would have to swallow 'several olympic swimming pools' of water a day to get a similar dosage to a prescription pill.
His argument may hold greater sway in the U.S where the nationwide fluoridation of water in the 1940s was hailed as a great public health success.
In the UK only 10 per cent of the water is fluoridated, with opponents criticising it as 'compulsory mass medication.'
When a health trust in Southampton tried to force through the flouridation of tap water in 2009, it caused uproar and a legal wrangle that is ongoing.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1390732/Adding-Lithium-drinking-water-lower-suicide-rates.html#ixzz2aZIBK5hV
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook And since 'some' people might complain about the source of that article...heres one from the BBC.
Lithium in water 'curbs suicide'
| The protective effect could be the result of years of drinking this water |
Drinking water which contains the element lithium may reduce the risk of suicide, a Japanese study suggests.
Researchers examined levels of lithium in drinking water and suicide rates in the prefecture of Oita, which has a population of more than one million.
The suicide rate was significantly lower in those areas with the highest levels of the element, they wrote in the British Journal of Psychiatry.
High doses of lithium are already used to treat serious mood disorders.
But the team from the universities of Oita and Hiroshima found that even relatively low levels appeared to have a positive impact of suicide rates.
Levels ranged from 0.7 to 59 micrograms per litre. The researchers speculated that while these levels were low, there may be a cumulative protective effect on the brain from years of drinking this tap water.
Added element
At least one previous study has suggested an association between lithium in tap water and suicide. That research on data collected from the 1980s also found a significantly lower rate of suicide in areas with relatively high lithium levels.
| Any suggestion that it should be added, even in tiny amounts, to drinking water should be treated with caution and researched very thoroughly Sophie Corlett
Mind |
The Japanese researchers called for further research in other countries but they stopped short of any suggestion that lithium be added to drinking water.
The discussion around adding fluoride to water to protect dental health has proved controversial - criticised by some as mass involuntary medication.
In an accompanying editorial, Professor Allan Young of Vancouver's Institute for Mental Health said "this intriguing data should provoke further research.
"Large-scale trials involving the addition of lithium to drinking water supplies may then be feasible, although this would undoubtedly be subject to considerable debate. Following up on these findings will not be straightforward or inexpensive, but the eventual benefits for community mental health may be considerable."
Sophie Corlett, external relations director at mental health charity Mind said the research "certainly merits more investigation.
"We already know that lithium can act as a powerful mood stabiliser for people with bipolar disorder, and treating people with lithium is also associated with lower suicide rates.
"However, lithium also has significant and an unpleasant side effects in higher doses, and can be toxic. Any suggestion that it should be added, even in tiny amounts, to drinking water should be treated with caution and researched very thoroughly."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8025454.stm
The protective effect could be the result of years of drinking this water
Any suggestion that it should be added, even in tiny amounts, to drinking water should be treated with caution and researched very thoroughly
Sophie Corlett