Starting lithium linked to lower death and dementia risks
Estimated five-year risks were 6.61% versus 10.65% for death and 3.51% versus 4.85% for dementia, comparing lithium with valproate.
Frontiers in Neurology
In a retrospective observational cohort study, researchers compared 22,098 adults aged 40 or older starting lithium with 22,098 starting valproate. Both drugs are mood stabilisers. They used multinational electronic health records from 2004–2024 and matched the groups on demographic, clinical, psychiatric and treatment characteristics. They excluded people with pre-existing dementia and followed patients according to their first recorded prescription.
Starting lithium was associated with lower recorded risks of death from any cause and newly diagnosed dementia than starting valproate. Researchers recorded 884 deaths and 495 dementia cases in the lithium group, compared with 1,585 deaths and 754 dementia cases in the valproate group. Additional analyses found associations in the same direction.
Why it matters
Dementia is an age-related disease. This comparison addresses whether the long-term risks associated with two widely prescribed mood stabilisers differ.
Caveats
The observational design cannot establish that either drug caused the differences. Differences between the groups could remain despite matching and could have influenced the results.
The paper
Taichung Veterans General Hospital · National Chung Hsing University
Frontiers in Neurology · 22 Sep 2026
