Lithium could treat, prevent it, says new study

Published

4 weeks ago

August 6, 2025

The research suggests a new approach to preventing and treating the mind-robbing disease.

“It seems to somehow turn back the clock,” said the team’s senior author, Dr. Bruce Yankner, co-director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for the Biology of Aging Research, and professor of genetics and neurology at Harvard.

The findings come amid a rising tide of Alzheimer’s and growing urgency to pinpoint an effective treatment for the roughly 7 million Americans living with the disease, a number that is projected to reach nearly 13 million by 2050.

For years, researchers believed the buildup of sticky clumps of protein, known as amyloid plaques, fueled the devastating cascade of brain degeneration in Alzheimer’s. But new medications designed to clear the plaques have not reversed memory loss and have had only modest success slowing decline, which suggests there’s some other spark that is igniting the disease.

Yankner now believes that may be a lithium deficiency.

Dr. Bruce Yankner sat in his office at Harvard Medical School next to a photograph of a brain with Alzheimers on Monday, Aug. 4. Heather Diehl/For The Boston Globe

Lithium has long been used to treat mental health conditions, particularly bi-polar disorder. But the form of lithium typically used for such treatments, lithium carbonate, is different than the one used by the Yankner team, which employed lithium orotate.

His team studied brain tissue donated from about 400 people post mortem, as well as blood samples and a battery of memory tests performed yearly before their death. The participants ranged from cognitively healthy at the time of their death to having full-blown Alzheimer’s.

The scientists found higher levels of lithium in cognitively healthy people. But as amyloid began forming in the early stages of dementia, in both humans and in mice, the amyloid bound to the lithium, restraining it and reducing its availability to surrounding brain cells. That depleted the lithium even in parts of the brain that were amyloid free, essentially reducing lithium’s protective function.

To test whether lithium depletion was driving the disease or simply a byproduct of it, they fed healthy mice a lithium-restricted diet, draining their lithium levels. This appeared to accelerate their brain aging process, creating inflammation and reducing the ability of nerve cells to communicate. That spurred memory loss in the mice, as measured by their diminished performance in several laboratory memory tests.

The researchers then fed a restricted-lithium diet to mice that were genetically engineered to develop Alzheimer’s-like amyloid plaques and abnormal tangles of another protein, called tau, and witnessed a dramatic acceleration of the disease.

These images show what happens to the brains of Alzheimer's mice when they are placed on a lithium deficient diet. It shows that lithium deficiency markedly increases the number of amyloid plaques and the number of tangle-like structures in the brain, resembling advanced Alzheimer's disease in humans. — These images show what happens to the brains of Alzheimer’s mice when they are placed on a lithium deficient diet. It shows that lithium deficiency markedly increases the number of amyloid plaques and the number of tangle-like structures in the brain, resembling advanced Alzheimer’s disease in humans.Yankner Lab

But they were able to reverse the disease-related damage and restore memory function, even in older mice with advanced disease, by returning lithium to their diet. (Lithium orotate, the compound the scientists used, can evade capture by Alzheimer’s amyloid plaques).

These images show that treatment of the Alzheimer mice with a very low dose of lithium orotate almost completely abolishes both the plaques and the tangle-like structures.Yankner Lab

Other scientists not involved in the research said the findings create a new approach to designing medications to treat and prevent Alzheimer’s.

“This study is looking at it from a novel angle,” said Li-Huei Tsai, director of the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“I didn’t expect that the lithium level [in our body] would be this critical,” she said. “I just hadn’t thought about it this way.”

The amount of lithium in medications used for mental health conditions is very high and can be toxic to elderly patients. But the amount of lithium used by Yankner’s team was one-thousandth the level, essentially mimicking the amount naturally found in the brain.

Indeed, mice fed tiny amounts throughout their adult life showed no signs of toxicity.

Earlier research has suggested a link between sustained intake of lithium and lower levels of dementia. Notably, a 2017 nationwide Danish study that tracked the lithium levels in the drinking water of 800,000 people, aged 50 to 90, found that those diagnosed with dementia had lived in areas with lower levels of lithium in the drinking water.

Saul Villeda, an associate professor and associate director of the Bakar Aging Research Institute at the University of California, San Francisco, said the new Harvard study is intriguing because the safety profile of lithium is already well known, giving a potential lithium-based Alzheimer’s medication a leg up.

“When we’re thinking about the therapeutics of a replacement, if you’re lowering something, you just have to replace it back to the natural levels,” he said. “That seems a lot safer than introducing something that our body is not used to, or doesn’t already need in order to function. ”

“That’s a really good rationale for pursuing it,” he said.

A number of factors are linked through research to a higher risk of Alzheimer’s and dementia including advanced age, family history, and genetics, as well as several modifiable factors such as diet, smoking, hypertension and diabetes. A recent large study found that simple lifestyle changes, including improved nutrition, increased physical activity, and more time with friends, led to improved cognition.

Liviu Aron, first author of the study that links lithium deficiency to Alzheimer’s disease, looked at samples of human and mouse brains in the Harvard lab on Aug. 4.Heather Diehl/For The Boston Globe

Many foods already touted for their health benefits naturally contain higher amounts of lithium — seafood, grains, nuts, some vegetables, and mineral water.

Matt Kaeberlein, an adjunct professor at the University of Washington who studies the biology of aging, said Alzheimer’s is typically a disease of aging and the Harvard findings build on earlier research that has suggested lithium can slow signs of aging in worms and some animals.

But Kaeberlein and other researchers said the real test of the Harvard team’s findings would be a large clinical trial in people, with half of the participants receiving small doses of lithium orotate and the others a sham substance, to compare the findings. Kaeberlein said the safety track record of this form of lithium, which showed no toxicity in animals, may help speed trials in people.

The Harvard findings “line up with a lot of earlier work, both in the brain and in normal aging,” Kaeberlein said.

And he added something rarely heard from scientists when discussing cutting-edge research and a potential medication that may fundamentally change the course of a dreaded disease.

This work, he said, “feeds my optimism that this will lead to potential therapeutics.”

But one obstacle to advancing the research is the freeze on nearly all federal funding to Harvard imposed by the Trump administration earlier this year. The National Institutes of Health was a major supporter, “and this support has been terminated as part of the overall termination of federal grant support to Harvard,” said Yankner. ”Unfortunately, this will significantly limit our progress going forward.”

Kay Lazar can be reached at kay.lazar@globe.com Follow her @GlobeKayLazar.

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Belgium to recognize Palestinian state at UN General Assembly, impose sanctions on Israel

Published

3 hours ago

September 2, 2025

ToI Staff

Belgium will recognize the State of Palestine at the United Nations General Assembly later this month, Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot announced Tuesday, adding that sanctions will be imposed on the Israeli government.

“Palestine will be recognized by Belgium at the UN session! And firm sanctions are being imposed against the Israeli government,” Prevot wrote on X.

There was no comment from Israel regarding the announcement.

The Belgian foreign minister said that the move would send a “strong political and diplomatic signal” to preserve the chances of a two-state solution, and “mark the condemnation of Israel’s expansionist ambitions, with its colonization programs and military occupations.”

Prevot said that Belgium noted “the trauma that the Israeli people have suffered from the terrorist attacks by Hamas on October 7, 2023,” and that therefore “administrative formalization” of the recognition of Palestine will only be declared by royal decree “when the last hostage has been released and Hamas no longer exercises any form of governance over Palestine.”

The announcement averted a political crisis in Belgium that had divided the governing coalition.

People walk with bags of humanitarian aid they received at a distribution center run by the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), as they cross the Netzarim corridor in the central Gaza Strip, on August 22, 2025. (Eyad BABA / AFP)

In July, French President Emmanuel Macron said France would recognize a Palestinian state at the UN meeting, due to be held from September 9 to 23 in New York.

More than a dozen other Western countries have since said they would do the same. Israeli ministers have lambasted the move as a “reward for terror” in the wake of the October 7 onslaught.

The United States said last week it will not allow Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to travel to New York for the UNGA.

Prevot said the decision to recognize a Palestinian state came “in view of the humanitarian tragedy” unfolding in Gaza amid the war, with pressure needed on both Israel and Hamas.

“In the face of the violence perpetrated by Israel in violation of international law, given its international obligations, including the duty to prevent any risk of genocide, Belgium had to take strong decisions to increase pressure on the Israeli government and Hamas terrorists,” he wrote.

Demonstrators hold signs calling for the release of hostages held in Gaza, at Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, August 30, 2025. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

“This is not about punishing the Israeli people, but rather about ensuring that its government respects international and humanitarian law and taking action to try to change the situation on the ground,” he added.

Prevot said additionally said that “any antisemitism or glorification of terrorism by Hamas supporters will also be condemned more vigorously.”

Prevot said that 12 steps would be taken regarding sanctions on Israel and detailed a number of them: a ban on the import of products originating from settlements; a review of public procurement policies with Israeli companies; limitation of consular assistance to Belgians living in settlements deemed illegal under international law; possible judicial prosecutions; and bans on overflights and transit.

It was unclear how a ban on overflights and transit would be implemented. According to Bloomberg, the ban was for the Israeli military.

Additionally, Prevot said “two extremist Israeli ministers, various violent settlers and Hamas leaders” would be “persona non gratae” in Belgium. While he did not name the two ministers impacted, far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister have been similarly banned from other countries.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, center, and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich at a ‘Victory Conference’ at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem on January 28, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

In addition, Belgium will support moves within the EU to suspend cooperation with Israel, including the suspension of the association agreement, research programs and technical cooperation. European Union foreign ministers remained sharply divided during a meeting in Copenhagen on Saturday over the war in Gaza, with some urging the bloc to exert significant economic pressure on Israel, while others firmly opposed such measures.

Prevot also wrote that Belgium will join the “New York Declaration,” which sets out a phased plan to end the nearly eight-decade conflict and the ongoing war in Gaza. The plan would culminate in an independent, demilitarized Palestine living side by side peacefully with Israel, and their eventual integration into the wider Middle East region.

In July, Arab and Muslim countries, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan and Turkey, signed the declaration in which they also condemned for the first time Hamas’s onslaught of October 7, 2023, and called on the terror group to release all the hostages it is holding, disarm and end its rule of Gaza, in a bid to end the devastating war in the Strip. Seventeen countries, plus the 22-member Arab League and the entire European Union, threw their weight behind the text, agreed on at a United Nations conference on reviving the two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians.

Israel has been under mounting pressure to wrap up its campaign in Gaza, where the war has created a humanitarian crisis and devastated much of the territory.

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Why plastic-filled ‘Neptune balls’ are washing up on beaches

Published

3 hours ago

September 2, 2025

Frankie Adkins

In 2018 and 2019, Sanchez-Vidal’s team examined seagrass balls washed up on four beaches on the island of Mallorca, Spain. On the shores of Sa Marina, Son Serra de Marina, Costa dels Pins and Es Peregons Petits, they found plastic debris in half of the loose seagrass leaf samples, up to 600 fragments per kilogram (2.2lb) of leaves.

Only 17% of Neptune balls contained plastic, but where it was found it was densely packed – nearly 1,500 pieces per kilogram. Tighter bundled balls were more effective at trapping plastic.

“After our paper was published, a lot of people started sending me [pictures of] monster Neptune balls,” says Sanchez-Vidal. These are balls that capture larger and more visible pieces of plastic.

“Sometimes they had sanitary towels, tampons, wet wipes – things with a lot of cellulose, so they sink,” she explains: “No, I didn’t really want to receive those pictures from everybody,” she jokes.

Getty Images Neptune balls are natural products of Posidonia seagrass meadows, but the plastic inside some of them comes from human pollution (Credit: Getty Images) — Neptune balls are natural products of Posidonia seagrass meadows, but the plastic inside some of them comes from human pollution (Credit: Getty Images)

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Bill Belichick’s college coaching debut one to forget as North Carolina is pummeled by TCU

Published

3 hours ago

September 2, 2025

The Editors

Chapel Hill, N.C. — North Carolina’s high-point moment in its first game under coach Bill Belichick came early.

A festive pregame atmosphere led to a roar from the crowd at kickoff. And a season-opening drive moved at a crisp pace to the end zone.

After that, well, Monday night’s hyped-up debut turned into a romp by TCU – along with a reminder that even an NFL icon with six Super Bowl titles as a head coach can’t just magically turn the Tar Heels into winners after decades of also-ran status.

“We played competitively but then just couldn’t sustain it,” Belichick said in the familiar low tone from his NFL news conferences after the 48-14 loss. “Obviously, we have a lot of work to do. We need to do a better job all the way around – coaching, playing, all three phases of the game.”

North Carolina Tar Heels head coach Bill Belichick looks toward the scoreboard during the college football game against the TCU Horned Frogs on Sept. 1, 2025 at Kenan Memorial Stadium in Chapel Hill, N.C.

Nicholas Faulkner / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

CBSSports.com’s Shehan Jeyarajah points out that, “The NFL is generally a defensive league where teams are close to evenly matched. At the college level, Belichick will come to understand just how big the talent differentials are between the good and bad teams — and he was on the wrong end.”

The blowout put a major damper on a night buzzing with optimism for the 73-year-old Belichick’s college debut, only to see the Horned Frogs dominate so thoroughly they drove UNC fans to the Kenan Stadium exits by midway through the third quarter.

“It was a great environment tonight,” Belichick said. “I mean, the fans were awesome. There was great energy in the stadium. We just didn’t do enough to keep it going. We’ve got to play better for the energy to be sustainable.”

By the end of the game, Kenan was a ghost town and the Tar Heels had given up more points than in any previous opener in their history, according to Sportradar.

It was a jarring result, even amid uncertainty as to exactly what to expect from UNC with roughly 70 new players between transfers and incoming recruits. There were few highlights after that opening drive beyond Kaleb Cost’s athletic reeling in of a deflected ball for an interception and quarterback Max Johnson returning in relief from a serious leg injury sustained in last year’s opener at Minnesota.

“We’re just moving forward, just moving forward,” said Cost, offering an unintentional callback to Belichick’s famous “We’re on to Cincinnati” response to reporters’ questions after a blowout loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in 2014.

UNC was picked to finish eighth in the 17-team Atlantic Coast Conference, though that seemed almost entirely predicated on Belichick’s mere presence. This is a man, after all, who teamed with legendary quarterback Tom Brady to win six world titles in his 24-year run with the New England Patriots. Someone who won more regular-season and playoff games in the NFL (333) than anyone other than Don Shula.

So there was spectacle to Belichick’s debut as he took the field sporting a familiar look from the pro sideline with a gray hoodie – only this one bearing the name “Carolina Football” in that distinctive shade of light blue.

An estimated 5,000 fans packed onto a main campus quad for a pregame concert and throngs lined the team’s walk to Kenan, where UNC has sold out all its season tickets – at an elevated price with Belichick’s arrival – and single-game seats for the season. The game attracted ESPN to hold a pregame studio show from the sideline with a crew that included former Alabama coach Nick Saban, with Belichick popping over briefly to say hello.

There were notable former UNC athletes from years past, including NBA legend Michael Jordan – who won a national championship under Dean Smith here in 1982 – and former UNC star linebacker Lawrence Taylor, who played under Belichick when he was an assistant and eventually defensive coordinator with the New York Giants during the 1980s.

And it wasn’t hard to spot Jordon Hudson – Belichick’s 24-year-old girlfriend who has generated her own tabloid-level curiosity – as she walked the pregame sideline sporting Carolina blue pants shimmering with sequins-like additions on the legs.

Coach Bill Belichick and his girlfriend Jordon Hudson — North Carolina Tar Heels football head coach Bill Belichick and girlfriend Jordon Hudson at a game on March 8, 2025 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Jared C. Tilton / Getty Images

Belichick roamed the field during pregame warmups for the better part of a half-hour. At one point, he stood on the UNC end of the field with general manager Michael Lombardi, then shared a quick handshake with ACC commissioner Jim Phillips as he made his way toward midfield.

Once there, Belichick shook hands with members of the officiating crew and watched the Horned Frogs warm up.

The Tar Heels got off to a sprint of a start with an 83-yard drive that ended with Caleb Hood scoring through the right side from 8 yards out, followed by forcing a quick punt. But things soon started getting away.

TCU – which lost in a similar scenario as the “other” team in Deion Sanders’ debut at Colorado two years ago – never looked rattled or thrown. Bud Clark provided a highlight by jumping Gio Lopez’s sideline throw for an easy 25-yard pick-six as TCU took a 20-7 lead into the break.

It quickly got worse after halftime. Kevorian Barnes sprinted through the right side and down the sideline for a 75-yard touchdown on the first snap. Trent Battle added his own big run, slipping through the left side untouched and going 28 yards for a TD.

And finally, Devean Deal had a 37-yard scoop-and-score on Lopez’s fumble to make it 41-7 and start the Kenan exodus.

By the end, UNC had just 222 total yards, 320 fewer than TCU, and a short week to fix problems before visiting Charlotte on Saturday.

“They were clearly the better team tonight,” Belichick said. “They deserved to win and they did it decisively.”

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