In The British Journal of Psychiatry earlier this year, the neuropsychiatrist Takeshi Terao and other researchers showed that communities in Japan’s Oita Prefecture with higher levels of naturally occurring lithium in their water supplies had fewer suicides than those with lower levels. The amounts range between 0.7 and 59 micrograms per liter. Lithium in prescription doses (say, 600 to 900 milligrams) helps reduce mood swings in patients with bipolar disorder, but Terao and his colleagues speculate that drinking even small amounts over time has a cumulative effect, building up a resistance to the onset of mood swings in the first place.”
[The most striking thing here is the good will of the scientists. One wonders if they lack the concept of a "slippery slope" in Japan. -Ed.]
Douglas Faneuil is the founder of Living Proof Productions, a not-for-profit devoted to suicide prevention based in New York City. He also designs database solutions for companies throughout the Northeast.
This story you quote from The New York Times is little short of plagiarism. This ’story’ has already been well, and much more accurately covered by other newspapers and bloggers worldwide back in May of this year. As can be seen by referring to just one of them, the BBC News online report of 1st May 2009, all the information in the NYT ‘article’ has been purloined from pre-existing articles from 6 months ago, all the way through to the quotation from the MIND organization which is more fully and accurately reported in BBC news article back in May than is the case in the NYT:
BBC News: “Lithium in water ‘curbs suicide’”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8025454.stm
Yes, the pros and cons still need to be weighed carefully. It is important to note that this study was done on naturally existing levels of lithium in the water supply in the Oita area of Japan. Some bloggers on other websites have misunderstood this as being some indication lithium is being added to the water supply in Japan, an assertion which is groundless in fact.
While the BBC report is well written there is also a good report on this from the Telegraph published on 30th April:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/5251365/Natural-levels-of-lithium-in-drinking-water-help-reduce-suicides.html
For the orginal article in the British Journal of Psychiatry see: http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/abstract/194/5/464
I am a JSCCP clinical psychologist and JFP psychotherapist working in Japan for over 20 years. I would like to put forward a perspective as a mental health practitioner for some of the reasons behind the unacceptably high suicide in Japan. Mental health professionals in Japan have long known that some of the main reasons for the unnecessarily high suicide rate in Japan is due to unemployment, bankruptcies, and the increasing levels of stress on businessmen and other salaried workers who have suffered enormous hardship in Japan since the bursting of the stock market bubble here that peaked around 1997. Until that year Japan had an annual suicide of rate figures between 22,000 and 24,000 each year. Following the bursting of the stock market and the long term economic downturn that has followed here since the suicide rate in 1998 increased by around 35% and since 1998 the number of people killing themselves each year in Japan has consistently remained well over 30,000 each and every year to the present day. The current worldwide recession is of course impacting Japan too, so unless the new administration initiates very proactive and well funded local and nationwide suicide prevention programs and other mental health care initiatives, including tackling the widespread problem of clinical depression suffered by so many of the general population, it is very difficult to foresee the previous government’s stated target to reduce the suicide rate to around 23,000 by the year 2016 as being achievable. On the contrary the numbers, and the human suffering and the depression and misery that the people who become part of these numbers, have to endure may well stay at the current levels that have persistently been the case here for the last ten years. It could even get worse unless even more is done to prevent this terrible loss of life.
Going back to the BBC report it says, “The Japanese researchers called for further research in other countries but they stopped short of any suggestion that lithium be added to drinking water.” No we don’t lack the concept of “a “slippery slope” in Japan”, I wonder if you and American media reports, such as this one from the NYT quoted here, lack the concept of a “slippery slope” when it comes to reporting on Japan, the Japanese people and all the hard working and caring mental health professionals here who really know what the difficulties and problems we face everyday in our work both with our clients and patients and also in our efforts, including research, to halt the rise in the suicide rate and then bring about a reduction in the tragic numbers of people who commit suicide in Japan.
I would also like to suggest that as many Japanese people have very high reading skills in English that any articles dealing with suicide in Japan could usefully provide contact details for hotlines and support services for people who are depressed and feeling suicidal.
Some useful telephone numbers and links for residents of Tokyo and Japan who speak Japanese and/or English and are feeling depressed or suicidal and need to get in touch with a mental health professional qualified in Japan:
Inochi no Denwa (Lifeline Telephone Service):
Japan: 0120-738-556
Tokyo: 3264 4343
AMDA International Medical Information Center:
http://amda-imic.com/
http://www.counselingjapan.com
Tokyo Counseling Services:
http://tokyocounseling.com/english/
http://tokyocounseling.com/jp/
Wow Andrew. Thank you so much for the update. I’m not at all surprised that the Times would sensationalize a story to the point of fabrication. And many apologies for my part in seeming culturally insensitive.
Obviously news of low-level lithium ingestion leading to a decrease in suicide is interesting and noteworthy. I don’t mean to quibble with the research – or even the suggestion that such intake could be a viable treatment one day. I have a very open mind when it comes to mental illness. We should all do and try more.
What I wrote was insulting to the scientists, and with a little more thought (or research of my own), I could have guessed what happened: the most far-reaching, dystopian implications of a scientific study are heralded by a cash-strapped and profit-obsessed media, leaving little room for an honest and interesting discussion. So, my apology to Professor Takeshi Terao and his researchers. Keep up the good work!
As for the notion of boosting our water supply, I’m aghast. And in retrospect, it strikes me as a particularly American idea: expensive, dangerous, facile, dodgy, sweeping and naive — all in the extreme.