Kidney Dangers of Lithium Orotate?
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Kidney Dangers of Lithium Orotate?
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Is using lithium orotate dangerous?  An Internet search will bring up a list of sites stating that it is.  In every instance (found to date), this supposition is based solely on a single study done on lithium orotate in 1978.  There is no other research or study of any kind which concludes that lithium orotate is dangerous to use. 
 
And the much-quoted conclusion of the 1978 study is INCORRECT for the reasons explained below.

 

 

Flawed Conclusion of Kidney Study and Lithium Orotate

When researching for any problems or concerns regarding lithium orotate use, an abstract of a study done by Smith and Schou in 1978 can be found at PubMed. 

This study compared the effects on kidney function of lithium carbonate and lithium orotate.  Groups of rats were injected with equal amounts of lithium carbonate and lithium orotate (and a neutral injection of sodium chloride for the control group) and then examined.

The study found that renal lithium clearance was significantly lower, and kidney weight and the lithium concentrations in serum significantly higher after the injection of lithium orotate than after the injection of lithium carbonate.

The conclusion the study drew because of this lowered kidney function was that it seemed inadvisable to use lithium orotate for the treatment of patients. 

However, while studying research about liithium orotate in 2001, researcher Vickie Gunther observed that a highly significant point was completely unaddressed by this study.  During the study, the same amounts of lithium orotate and lithium carbonate were used.  But people DON'T USE the same enormous amounts required for lithium carbonate when using lithium orotate.

An effective dose of lithium orotate typically contains 15 mg of elemental lithium compared to 126 mg of elemental lithium from lithium carbonate.  More than 700% more lithium is used with lithium carbonate.  Based on the information in the study stating that equal amounts of each item was used, THE STUDY ADMINISTERED 700% TOO MUCH LITHIUM OROTATE! 

Gunther points out that the conclusion of this study is skewed because it completely disregards the way lithium orotate is administered in actual use. 

Ironically, this study which concluded that lithium orotate was inadvisable for treatment of patients was done as a direct follow-up study to one performed by Kling, Manowitz and Pollack in 1978.   Their study suggested that lithium orotate could be used in lower amounts than required of  lithium carbonate to achieve therapeutic results.