I read in a review of lithium orotate that it is broken down to uridine so I looked at the chemical structures and they are very similar, with the uridine just having a sugar molecule attached on the N and the COO- Li+. group removed. Interesting.
Uridine is one of the compounds hubby is taking as well as lithium orotate so it seems he is getting more uridine than I thought. Maybe this is one of the benefits of the lithium orotate, not just the Lithium.
"...seems he is getting more uridine than I thought. Maybe this is one of the benefits of the lithium orotate, not just the Lithium."
Sounds plausible enough, But that sugar molecule is ribose, so what is supplied sounds like components to build RNA in nerve cells, so as to improve the cell's ability to either grow, repair itself, absorb in the process some oxygen (maybe in the process removing an otherwise destructive reactive oxygen molecule from punching a hole in the cell) or ability to use dopamine (maybe the lithium helps there too)...or perhaps instead it is a way to supply more ability to create energy in the dopamine-producing nerve cells' mitochondria, but to create more energy or convert it requires some phosphorus...but it's a stretch to assume any of these things, guessing in the dark. Between a and b there could be dozens of reactions going on, probably are, tuning a piano might be much easier. We need an biochemist expert to comment.
Yes, I’m hoping they will😊. I was just bringing it to people’s attention for comment as something I noticed.
The ribose angle, I hadn’t noticed which sugar it was. Hubby has been taking ribose 5g in the past per day but that didn’t really seem to have any effect so he doesn’t take it now.
lithium carbonate is one of the suspected causal agents for parkinsons ....hang tough. one of many sources... neurologyadvisor.com/topics.... Results from a retrospective cohort study indicate that long-term lithium treatment may be associated with increased incidence of Parkinson’s disease (PD) and antiparkinson medication prescribing.
Standard dosing (prescription) for Lithium Carbonate (LC) is 1200 to 1600 mg/day or about 80 to 240 times the highest or lowest dose of Lithium Orotate (LO). At that dose level, LC has very significant side effects.
drugs.com/sfx/lithium-carbo...
Standard dosing for LO is 5 mg/day to 20 mg/day. At this dosing level, LO has a hugely better safety profile than LC.
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/a...
drugs.com/npp/lithium-orota...
Art
Ah but is it the lithium or the orotate that is helpful. Or both?
I think both, but the orotic acid is rarely discussed as an active component with most mentions being for the metal component.
Art
But I wonder if people don’t notice the similarity to uridine so assume it’s the lithium because lithium has a known effect, but there are studies on the brain and uridine too. What I would like to know is how the molecule of each is broken down for its use in the body. Do they both end up with that ‘base’ molecule?
Biochemist anyone?
Is there another lithium compound which is effective in that low dose?
Interesting. My mother was on lithium (presumably lithium carbonate) as a treatment for bipolar II disorder. I wonder that contributed to her progression to Parkinson's disease?
so say the neuro-docs at university colorado hospital.
Uridine as a supplement is typically taken in hundreds of milligrams whereas lithium orotate is typically taken in tens of milligrams. So the result of its metabolism will have little effect on the total amount of uridine.
Yes I thought of that . The Lithium part of lithium orotate is 5mg, but the molecular weight of lithium is about 7 and MW of lithium orotate is 162 so if you work out they amount of the orotate part that’s 115mg of that (is that correct, I’m a bit rusty).
Uridine has MW of 244, but has a ribose attached MW 150 leaving roughly 2/5 of it as that ‘base’ part of the uridine. So the 100mg of the uridine he takes is about 40mg of the ‘base’ part of the molecule. Did I calculate that right?
So actually the low dose lithium orotate delivers nearly 3x that base part than the uridine supplement I think?
The 60 mg of the uridine supplement is much less than the 5 g dose of ribose that is suggested so don’t think it would be that.
That is assuming it all gets broken down to those components, which I don’t know if it does. But interesting all the same I think.
soooo limit your poison uptake...hang tough...
Or is the ribose added to the base bit that makes the uridine effective? After all the niagen has a ribose which apparently is what makes it superior. Maybe if we take ribose with the lithium orotate it would be more effective? Or can’t it combine in that way? How does the body actually utilise it?
What serum levels indicate someone is deficient in Lithium? 
Worried about supplements.
