ArticleTranslational psychiatry2013
Long-term lithium treatment in bipolar disorder is associated with longer leukocyte telomeres.
Article in Translational psychiatry, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 88 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
88 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 178 citations in OpenAlex.
- Exploring accelerated aging as a target of bipolar disorder treatment: A systematic review.Journal of psychiatric research · 2024Pooled it
- A systematic review and meta-analysis of clinical predictors of lithium response in bipolar disorder.Acta psychiatrica Scandinavica · 2019Pooled it
- The Association Between Psychiatric Disorders and Telomere Length: A Meta-Analysis Involving 14,827 Persons.Psychosomatic medicine · 2016Pooled it
- Psychoeducational Program Increases Telomerase Activity in Bipolar Disorder: A Gender-Based Randomized Controlled Trial.CNS neuroscience & therapeutics · 2025Trial
- Leukocyte telomere length and depression, anxiety and stress and adjustment disorders in primary health care patients.BMC psychiatry · 2017Trial
- Lithium as a Potential Senostatic Agent in Central Nervous System Aging and Bipolar Disorder.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Long non-coding RNAs and accelerated aging in bipolar disorder.Neuroscience applied · 2026Review
- A Survey Exploring People's Experiences With Lithium Bought as a Supplement: Une enquête sur l'expérience des personnes avec le lithium en supplément.Canadian journal of psychiatry. Revue canadienne de psychiatrie · 2025Article
- Genome-wide methylation biomarkers and biological aging in patients with bipolar disorder characterized for lithium response.European psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists · 2025Article
- Lithium and neuroprotection: a review of molecular targets and biological effects at subtherapeutic concentrations in preclinical models of Alzheimer's disease.International journal of bipolar disorders · 2025Review
- The Mechanisms of Lithium Action: The Old and New Findings.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Limited evidence of association between dysregulated immune marker levels and telomere length in severe mental disorders.Acta neuropsychiatrica · 2025Article
- Valproic Acid and Lamotrigine Differentially Modulate the Telomere Length in Epilepsy Patients.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Article
- Targeting the hallmarks of aging: mechanisms and therapeutic opportunities.Frontiers in cardiovascular medicine · 2025Review
- Psychoneuroimmunology of Mood Disorders.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2025Review
- Oral intake of degalactosylated whey protein increases peripheral blood telomere length in young and aged mice.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Podocyte senescence: from molecular mechanisms to therapeutics.Renal failure · 2024Review
- The duration of lithium use and biological ageing: telomere length, frailty, metabolomic age and all-cause mortality.GeroScience · 2024Observational
- Psychotropic-induced weight gain and telomere length: results from a one-year longitudinal study and a large population-based cohort.Translational psychiatry · 2024Article
- The researcher's guide to selecting biomarkers in mental health studies.BioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology · 2024Review
28 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Telomere shortening is a hallmark of aging and has been associated with oxidative stress, inflammation and chronic somatic, as well as psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia and depression. Additionally, antidepressants have been found to protect against telomere shortening. However, pharmacological telomere studies are lacking in bipolar disorder (BD). Therefore, the objective of this study was to explore telomere length (TL) in patients with BD in the context of lithium treatment. We determined TL by quantitative real-time PCR using peripheral blood leukocytes. Participants were outpatients diagnosed with BD type 1 or 2 (n=256) and healthy controls (n=139). Retrospective case-control and case-case study designs were applied. Lithium response (LiR) was scored using the Alda-Scale. Lithium-treated BD patients overall, as well as those on lithium monotherapy, had 35% longer telomeres compared with controls (P<0.0005, partial η(2)=0.13). TL correlated positively with lithium treatment duration of >30 months (P=0.031, R(2)=0.13) and was negatively associated with increasing number of depressive episodes (P<0.007). BD patients responding well to lithium treatment had longer telomeres than those not responding well. This is the first study to report a positive effect of long-term lithium treatment on TL. Importantly, longer TL was also associated with a better LiR in BD patients. These data suggest that lithium exerts a protective effect against telomere shortening especially when therapeutically efficacious. We hypothesize that induction of telomerase activity may be involved in LiR in BD.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.