andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2010 andrew_gelman_stats-2010-179 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
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Introduction: As part of his continuing plan to sap etc etc., Aleks pointed me to an article by Max Miller reporting on a recommendation from Jacob Appel: Adding trace amounts of lithium to the drinking water could limit suicides. . . . Communities with higher than average amounts of lithium in their drinking water had significantly lower suicide rates than communities with lower levels. Regions of Texas with lower lithium concentrations had an average suicide rate of 14.2 per 100,000 people, whereas those areas with naturally higher lithium levels had a dramatically lower suicide rate of 8.7 per 100,000. The highest levels in Texas (150 micrograms of lithium per liter of water) are only a thousandth of the minimum pharmaceutical dose, and have no known deleterious effects. I don’t know anything about this and am offering no judgment on it; I’m just passing it on. The research studies are here and here . I am skeptical, though, about this part of the argument: We are not talking a
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1 , Aleks pointed me to an article by Max Miller reporting on a recommendation from Jacob Appel: Adding trace amounts of lithium to the drinking water could limit suicides. [sent-2, score-1.453]
2 Communities with higher than average amounts of lithium in their drinking water had significantly lower suicide rates than communities with lower levels. [sent-6, score-1.869]
3 Regions of Texas with lower lithium concentrations had an average suicide rate of 14. [sent-7, score-0.958]
4 2 per 100,000 people, whereas those areas with naturally higher lithium levels had a dramatically lower suicide rate of 8. [sent-8, score-1.311]
5 The highest levels in Texas (150 micrograms of lithium per liter of water) are only a thousandth of the minimum pharmaceutical dose, and have no known deleterious effects. [sent-10, score-1.227]
6 I am skeptical, though, about this part of the argument: We are not talking about adding therapeutic levels of lithium to the drinking water . [sent-13, score-1.476]
7 If you wanted to get a therapeutic level from the trace amounts that currently exist in the areas where there is already lithium, you would have to drink several Olympic size swimming pools. [sent-16, score-0.898]
8 So the reality is, these are very low levels, and there’s no reason to think they are not safe in the areas they already exist, so why not give everybody that benefit? [sent-17, score-0.219]
9 How much water is in “several Olympic size swimming pool,” anyway? [sent-18, score-0.523]
10 I looked it up and it says that each pool is at least 50m x 25m x 2m; that’s 2500 m^3 or 2. [sent-19, score-0.085]
11 If you drink a liter of water every day, it would take you tens of thousands of years to drink up the water in several such pools. [sent-21, score-1.194]
12 And, during that time, the water in the pools would surely either evaporate or be replenished. [sent-22, score-0.474]
13 Either way, you’re not gonna be drinking it all. [sent-23, score-0.194]
14 More seriously, though, how sure can this dude be that there’s no reason to think that these low levels are not safe? [sent-24, score-0.211]
15 If it can have an effect on mood, how can you be so sure it doesn’t have other effects that could show up at rates of 6 per 100,000 or more in large populations? [sent-25, score-0.168]
16 The second item in the list at the above-linked website is a recommendation to “sell your kidneys. [sent-28, score-0.073]
17 The recommended payment is “long-term health care and one year of life insurance. [sent-31, score-0.16]
18 ” I guess this wouldn’t work so well in industrialized countries outside the U. [sent-32, score-0.062]
19 , where you get long-term health care without even needing to surrender an organ. [sent-34, score-0.168]
20 MIller’s article referred to Jacob Appel, the proponent of the lithium idea, as a bioethicist. [sent-38, score-0.637]
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Introduction: As part of his continuing plan to sap etc etc., Aleks pointed me to an article by Max Miller reporting on a recommendation from Jacob Appel: Adding trace amounts of lithium to the drinking water could limit suicides. . . . Communities with higher than average amounts of lithium in their drinking water had significantly lower suicide rates than communities with lower levels. Regions of Texas with lower lithium concentrations had an average suicide rate of 14.2 per 100,000 people, whereas those areas with naturally higher lithium levels had a dramatically lower suicide rate of 8.7 per 100,000. The highest levels in Texas (150 micrograms of lithium per liter of water) are only a thousandth of the minimum pharmaceutical dose, and have no known deleterious effects. I don’t know anything about this and am offering no judgment on it; I’m just passing it on. The research studies are here and here . I am skeptical, though, about this part of the argument: We are not talking a
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