Lithium Orotate

[wackyvorlon]

I'm still fairly new to it myself, taking a university chem course right now. Enormously fun stuff. Did you know that the difference between an ionic bond and a covalent one is the electronegativity of the elements involved?

EDIT: A general rule of thumb, if you have a metal bonded with a non-metal, you have a salt. There's a stairstep line around group 6B on the periodic table that separates metals from non-metals. CHlorine is on the far side. So any chloride, carbonate, iodide, bromide, etc. are all salts.

 

[BenBurch]

I'm still fairly new to it myself, taking a university chem course right now. Enormously fun stuff. Did you know that the difference between an ionic bond and a covalent one is the electronegativity of the elements involved?

EDIT: A general rule of thumb, if you have a metal bonded with a non-metal, you have a salt. There's a stairstep line around group 6B on the periodic table that separates metals from non-metals. CHlorine is on the far side. So any chloride, carbonate, iodide, bromide, etc. are all salts.

I dimly recall that from Chem 105 in 1977...

 

[Madalch]

I'm still fairly new to it myself, taking a university chem course right now. Enormously fun stuff. Did you know that the difference between an ionic bond and a covalent one is the electronegativity of the elements involved?

That's actually an enormous simplification. There are other factors, such as the size and charge of the cation, and the size and polarizability of the anion. There's also no clear break between covalent bonding and an ionic attraction- it's more of a continuum.

The example I usually use in class is I have the students calculate the difference between the electronegativities of hydrogen and fluorine, and the same for lithium and iodine?

Then I ask them, "So which is a molecular compound with a boiling point near room temperature, and which is a stereotypical ionic salt- hydrogen fluoride or lithium iodide?"

If someone points out that hydrogen's a non-metal, I bring up tin chloride. Tin(II) chloride is a perfectly normal ionic compound- dissolves in water to form a conducting solution, melts to form a conducting liquid, doesn't dissolve in non-polar solvents, etc. Tin(IV) chloride (aka tin tetrachloride) is a liquid at room temperature, does not conduct electricity, dissolves readily in non-polar solvents (such as carbon tet), and doesn't dissolve in water (although it does react vigorously at the interface between teh two liquids).

 

[casebro]

I guess my assumption would be stated as -orotates may not be water soluble? But I didn't get that far in Chemistry. Hydophylic, lipophilic, na-na-na-nana...

As for dosage, the prescription Lith is 600 mg, the -oro is 120mg. I suspect there is more oro in the l-oro than there is carbonate in the l-carbonate. Therefor, an L-oro pill has much less L in it than an L-carbonate pill. Dose way too small to be effective?

 

[tesscaline]

I guess my assumption would be stated as -orotates may not be water soluble? But I didn't get that far in Chemistry. Hydophylic, lipophilic, na-na-na-nana...

As for dosage, the prescription Lith is 600 mg, the -oro is 120mg. I suspect there is more oro in the l-oro than there is carbonate in the l-carbonate. Therefor, an L-oro pill has much less L in it than an L-carbonate pill. Dose way too small to be effective?

That is one of the things I'm curious about, since I do know that the necessary dosage of lithium for effectiveness is quite near the line where it causes toxicity (and lithium poisoning is NOT a pretty thing, let me tell you!).

 

[BenBurch]

That is one of the things I'm curious about, since I do know that the necessary dosage of lithium for effectiveness is quite near the line where it causes toxicity (and lithium poisoning is NOT a pretty thing, let me tell you!).

Its not so much dosage as blood levels. Too many difference between people to do it just by a prescribed dose.

 

[casebro]

Ben, the prescription dose is 600-2400mg/day. I'm guessing the OTC pills have so little Lith in them to be relatively safe.

 

[wackyvorlon]

Tin(IV) chloride (aka tin tetrachloride) is a liquid at room temperature, does not conduct electricity, dissolves readily in non-polar solvents (such as carbon tet), and doesn't dissolve in water (although it does react vigorously at the interface between teh two liquids).

Just did some quick reading about it in wikipedia. You know, that is a far more interesting molecule than you'd expect.

 

[pgwenthold]

I'm still fairly new to it myself, taking a university chem course right now. Enormously fun stuff. Did you know that the difference between an ionic bond and a covalent one is the electronegativity of the elements involved?

EDIT: A general rule of thumb, if you have a metal bonded with a non-metal, you have a salt. There's a stairstep line around group 6B on the periodic table that separates metals from non-metals. CHlorine is on the far side. So any chloride, carbonate, iodide, bromide, etc. are all salts.

Of course, Pauling electronegativity has nothing to do with bond polarity. Fun exercise: plot dipoles vs deltaEN. Some correlation, but not a lot. Best example: compare dipoles in methyl chloride and methyl iodide. deltaEN says the C-I bond should be non-polar, but CH3I has the same dipole moment as CH3Cl.

In terms of bond polarity and EN, there are almost as many exceptions as there are those that follow the rule.

Yes, the metal/non-metal is a salt thing works pretty well, I wouldn't say it has much to do with electronegativity.

The electronegativity scale defined by using EA/IEs (not Pauling EN) is probably a little closer in this regard, but still not great.

BTW, don't bother with a "this is what I learned in first year chemistry" response. I know very well what is taught in first year college chemistry. First year chem doesn't teach squat about how bonding occurs - only practical models

 

[fuelair]

This thread probably isn't necessary, however, being the skeptic that I am I want more information than I've found.

I recently had recommended to me Lithium Orotate as a supplement to help with mood stabilization. Now, I'm not in any particular need of mood stabilization at the moment (for once in my life), but the idea that lithium would be sold OTC caught me off guard.

The wiki article (linked above) seems to say that it doesn't actually work... And while my gut is to trust that (being all anti-altmed and whatnot), I wouldn't be a proper skeptic if I didn't try to find out if wiki is right (it's often not entirely correct, after all).

Unfortunately, I'm not able to access full text on pay-to-view medical journals so I thought that one of the many well informed medical practitioners on this forum might shed some light for me.

Thanks much, in advance

Try this data: sounds reasonable, but not a specialty area of mine. http://www.delano.com/ReferenceArticles/Orotates-how-work-Sharpe.html

 

[wackyvorlon]

BTW, don't bother with a "this is what I learned in first year chemistry" response. I know very well what is taught in first year college chemistry. First year chem doesn't teach squat about how bonding occurs - only practical models

Well, I think it's plainly obvious that you've gone past first year chem. I appreciate your explanation. It is very enlightening. I'm not surprised they use a very simplified perspective in first year chem. How many people these days are still taught the Bohr model in high school? Just about everyone, I think.

 

[tesscaline]

I'm not entirely sure what the subjects taught in first year chemistry or high school have to do with the efficacy and/or safety of lithium orotate...

I'd really love to see some more discussion on that...

Fuelair -- thanks for the link. It seems to reference one of the studies that Prof. Yaffle linked earlier on.

I don't suppose anyone knows of any clinical trials on humans?

 

[Professor Yaffle]

I found this study of it's use in alcoholism (but its not an RCT, just an observational study) - but found later reviews saying that lithium was not beneficial in alcoholism.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3718672

Sadly, I noted that this study was used by a papr in a woo journal as evidence of its effectiveness in bipolar disorder:

http://www.nutritionj.com/content/7...OWSE.ASP/COMMENTS/ABSTRACT/COMMENTS/abstract/

 

[tesscaline]

I found this study of it's use in alcoholism (but its not an RCT, just an observational study) - but found later reviews saying that lithium was not beneficial in alcoholism.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3718672

Sadly, I noted that this study was used by some woo sites as evidence of its effectiveness as mood stabiliser.

Yeah see... It's that promotion by the woo sites (full of inaccurate or unreliable info) that's just really sticking in my craw on the matter. If it did work, why would they have to lie about study results? If it did work, why hasn't it undergone actual clinical trials? If it did work... Well... Why isn't it available in a normal pharmacy, and why don't psychiatrists prescribe it all the time?

I think starting this thread actually wound up leaving me with more questions than I started out with

I'm probably going to file it away in my "need more information" file (of my brain, I don't actually keep a filing cabinet full of this junk), and stay away from it until there is... well... more information.

I do want to thank you very much for looking for the studies for me. I most definitely appreciate your time and effort!

ETA: ooh I'm too quick in responding for once! Caught your edit. Thank you again, very much

 

[wackyvorlon]

I did a search on pubmed, and found some interesting stuff:

"Lithium toxicity from an Internet dietary supplement."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/...nel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

This one's a case report.

This one compares the pharmacokinetics of the orotate, carbonate and chloride salts:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/...nel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

It appears to find no different in rat in terms of blood lithium levels.

Those are the most interesting I pulled up via pubmed. There isn't much literature listed, though. A search found all of 7 papers.

I'm a student with Athabasca U, so I'm going to see what other articles I can dig up through their library.

 

[wackyvorlon]

From a case report on chronic renal failure and lithium:

"They talked about buying lithium orotate from the USA. This lithium product was marketed as no risk to kidney. A systematic literature search on this product found no evidence of efficacy in bipolar/mood disorder."

"Lithium in chronic renal failure: a case report"
doi:10.1016/j.genhosppsych.2009.03.008

EDIT: There seems to be very little research that I can find on lithium orotate. Mind, I'm by no means an expert at using these databases.