Observational studyGeroScience2024
The duration of lithium use and biological ageing: telomere length, frailty, metabolomic age and all-cause mortality.
Observational study in GeroScience, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 7 citations in OpenAlex.
- Exploring accelerated aging as a target of bipolar disorder treatment: A systematic review.Journal of psychiatric research · 2024Pooled it
- Pharmacological maintenance treatment in older age bipolar disorder.Current opinion in psychiatry · 2026Review
- Candidate Biomarkers of Bipolar Disorder Progression: Implications for Ketamine and Psychedelic Interventions.Molecular neurobiology · 2026Review
- A metabolomic clock of population ageing: cross-cohort validation and associations with frailty and cognitive function.GeroScience · 2026Article
- The Mechanisms of Lithium Action: The Old and New Findings.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Targeting the hallmarks of aging: mechanisms and therapeutic opportunities.Frontiers in cardiovascular medicine · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Lithium is an established first-line treatment for bipolar disorder. Beyond its therapeutic effect as a mood stabiliser, lithium exhibits potential anti-ageing effects. This study aimed to examine the relationship between the duration of lithium use, biological ageing and mortality. The UK Biobank is an observational study of middle-aged and older adults. We tested associations between the duration of lithium use (number of prescriptions, total duration of use and duration of the first prescription period) and telomere length, frailty, metabolomic age (MileAge) delta, pulse rate and all-cause mortality. Five hundred ninety-one individuals (mean age = 57.49 years; 55% females) had been prescribed lithium. There was no evidence that the number of prescriptions (β = - 0.022, 95% CI - 0.081 to 0.037, p = 0.47), the total duration of use (β = - 0.005, 95% CI - 0.023 to 0.013, p = 0.57) or the duration of the first prescription period (β = - 0.018, 95% CI - 0.051 to 0.015, p = 0.29) correlated with telomere length. There was also no evidence that the duration of lithium use correlated with frailty or MileAge delta. However, a higher prescription count and a longer duration of use was associated with a lower pulse rate. The duration of lithium use did not predict all-cause mortality. We observed no evidence of associations between the duration of lithium use and biological ageing markers, including telomere length. Our findings suggest that the potential anti-ageing effects of lithium do not differ by the duration of use.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.