The Amazing Lithium for COVID-19 and Long COVID

Introduction

Lithium is a nutritional supplement with antiviral properties. It can also prevent a cytokine storm, making it useful for COVID-19.

The good thing about lithium is that it has yet to be well known and thus not vilified like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. Being over the counter makes it easily accessible.

This video will serve as an introduction to lithium and its effect on COVID-19 and possibly Long Covid.

Lithium

Lithium is one of the first three elements after the Big Bang.

Aside from its use as a battery, doctors commonly prescribe lithium for mania and manic depressive or bipolar disorder.

Many doctors will tell you that it has a “narrow therapeutic window,” meaning it can have toxic side effects.

The dose for mania or bipolar disorder is 600 to 1800 mg daily. However, an over-the-counter form is much lower at 1 to 5 mg.

And that’s a big difference.

Dr. Michel Nehls

My interest in lithium started when I listened to the interview of Dr. Michael Nehls by Mika Adams on Brighteon. In the interview, I heard him talk about the positive effects of lithium on the brain.

The effects are:

Protection against the development of Alzheimer’s disease.
The production of new brain cells.
The promotion of neuronal autophagy.

Dr. Nehls recommended a one mg dose of lithium every day. So I searched Amazon, and lo and behold, it is available in 1 and 5 mg capsules.

As always, whenever I hear a medical claim like this, I research and verify what Dr. Nehls said about lithium.

Dr. Nehls wrote The Indoctrinated Brain, and it is available on Amazon. I will provide an affiliate link below.

Lithium and COVID-19

In August 2020, Frontiers of Pharmacology published research conducted in Spain on six people with COVID-19 who were given lithium. [1]

The patients did much better because of improved inflammatory activity and the immune response in these patients.

The authors’ next step was to conduct a randomized controlled trial on 15 patients given 200 mg of lithium every 12 hours. The control group consisted of 15 patients who received a steroid called dexamethasone, a strong or, you might say, hospital-grade anti-inflammatory for 7-10 days.[2]

The study group consisted of people who are at risk for severe COVID-19, like hypertension, dyslipidemia, and obesity.

The result is that in the lithium group, everybody got better, their hospital stay was shorter (6.47 days), and no one got admitted to the ICU.

In contrast, the dexamethasone group had a longer hospital stay (12.09); two were admitted to the ICU, and one died.

When they studied the levels of inflammatory cytokines, the lithium group had lower inflammatory cytokines, which explains why no one in the group required an ICU admission.

After one month, 7 out of the 15 in the lithium group continued to have symptoms, while 10 out of the 15 in the control group continued to have COVID symptoms.

Lithium as Antiviral

How can lithium be effective in COVID-19? Previous research has shown lithium has antiviral properties against DNA and RNA viruses.

Research has shown that lithium inhibited the growth of avian coronavirus, herpes simplex virus, porcine epidemic diarrhea virus, and canine parvovirus.

Lithium can modify the immune response.

Lithium and GSK-3

Lithium can modulate the immune response by inhibiting the glycogen synthase kinase -3 (GSK-3).

Christopher Rudd from the University of Montreal and McGill University GSK-3 Inhibition as a Therapeutic Approach Against SARs CoV2: Dual Benefit of Inhibiting Viral Replication While Potentiating the Immune Response. In it he said,

My hypothesis is that the repurposing of low-cost inhibitors of GSK-3 such as lithium will limit SARS-CoV2 infections by both reducing viral replication and potentiating the immune response against the virus. [3]

Lithium and Long COVID

If lithium can decrease the incidence of neurological deficits after COVID-19, does it mean it can help people with Long COVID symptoms?

Dr. Thomas Guttoso, Jr from the Department of Neurology of the University of Buffalo thinks so.

An article from UB Now, a publication of the University at Buffalo, described his experience with lithium for his patients with Long COVID symptoms.

Improvement in a matter of days

“I was shocked when the patient saw improvement within a matter of days,” says Guttuso. Since then, he discovered that during the pandemic, researchers in Spain had published findings revealing that patients who were already taking lithium for bipolar disorder who became acutely infected and hospitalized with COVID-19 had better outcomes than those not taking lithium.

Those findings, and the reports from his own patients, were intriguing. And when other physicians heard of Guttuso’s success, they began referring their patients with long COVID to him. Eventually, he was treating 10 additional long COVID patients with low-dose lithium; nine saw improvement from lithium. None experienced side effects.

“I just kept hearing the same story: that within days they were noticing satisfactory benefit,” says Guttuso. Some said their symptoms didn’t come back even after they stopped taking lithium, while others needed to keep taking it.

Jennifer Stewart of East Amherst was one of them. She had had a mild COVID-19 infection in January 2022, marked by few symptoms aside from brain fog and intense fatigue, which didn’t let up even months later.

“I’m a really energetic person, I never nap, and here I was taking naps in the middle of the day,” she recalls. “I even slept through a Bills game I was going to watch on TV. That’s how bad it was.”

Finally, in July, she went to see Guttuso. After a thorough exam, he mentioned the outcomes he was seeing with his long COVID patients on lithium. She was surprised to hear that lithium, which she knew was prescribed for psychiatric conditions, might help.

“Dr. Guttuso explained to me it’s such a low dose, it’s like the equivalent of taking a mineral like calcium or magnesium,” says Stewart. “I asked him how long it typically takes to kick in and he said about four days. I thought, ‘Wow, that’s fast.’

“Within about two days, I realized ‘Holy cow, I don’t need to take a nap,’” she says. “That strong need for a nap had disappeared.”

A few weeks later, she stopped taking lithium. Her symptoms have not returned. Asked what advice she would have for others with long COVID, Stewart doesn’t hesitate.

“I’d say, oh my gosh, why on earth wouldn’t you enroll in this trial?” she says. “My symptoms are completely gone.”

Guttuso’s interest in low-dose lithium therapy goes beyond long COVID. He is currently conducting a clinical trial on using the therapy for people with Parkinson’s disease.

Dr. Guttoso wrote The Promise of Lithium, which is available on Amazon.

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References:

Spuch C, López-García M, Rivera-Baltanás T, Rodrígues-Amorím D, Olivares JM. Does Lithium Deserve a Place in the Treatment Against COVID-19? A Preliminary Observational Study in Six Patients, Case Report. Front Pharmacol. 2020 Aug 27;11:557629. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2020.557629. PMID: 32973537; PMCID: PMC7481472.
Spuch C, López-García M, Rivera-Baltanás T, Cabrera-Alvargonzález JJ, Gadh S,, Rodrigues-Amorim D, Álvarez-Estévez T, Mora A, Iglesias-Martínez-Almeida M, Freiría-Martínez L, Pérez-Rodríguez M, Pérez-González A, López-Domínguez A, Longueira-Suarez MR, Sousa-Domínguez A, Araújo-Ameijeiras A, Mosquera-Rodríguez D, Crespo M, Vila-Fernández D, Regueiro B, Olivares JM. Efficacy and Safety of Lithium Treatment in SARS-CoV-2 Infected Patients. Front Pharmacol. 2022 Apr 14;13:850583. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2022.850583. PMID: 35496309; PMCID: PMC9046673.
Rudd CE. GSK-3 Inhibition as a Therapeutic Approach Against SARs CoV2: Dual Benefit of Inhibiting Viral Replication While Potentiating the Immune Response. Front Immunol. 2020 Jun 26;11:1638. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2020.01638. PMID: 32695123; PMCID: PMC7333796.
Murru A, Manchia M, Hajek T, Nielsen RE, Rybakowski JK, Sani G, Schulze TG, Tondo L, Bauer M; International Group for The Study of Lithium Treated Patients (IGSLi). Lithium’s antiviral effects: a potential drug for CoViD-19 disease? Int J Bipolar Disorder. 2020 May 20;8(1):21. doi: 10.1186/s40345-020-00191-4. PMID: 32435920; PMCID: PMC7239605.
Barr RD, Galbraith PR. Lithium and hematopoiesis. Can Med Assoc J. 1983 Jan 15;128(2):123-6. PMID: 6336655; PMCID: PMC1874851.

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