Brain Gout

The breakthrough treatment for Bipolar Disorder was discovered by an ex-POW (prisoner of war) who injected guinea pigs with human urine. 

John Cade’s accidental discovery is even more fascinating if we consider that Cade’s theory was wrong, his observations were wrong, and his experiments do not meet modern-day standards.

During his time in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp, Cade was put in charge of the psychiatric section, observing the disease-causing effects of vitamin deficiencies in his fellow prisoners. 

Later, as a psychiatrist, he wondered if Bipolar Disorder was caused by too much or too little of an unknown substance. He recognized that mania resembled an overactive thyroid while depression resembled an underactive thyroid. So it made sense to him that a chemical, like a thyroid hormone in the dysregulated thyroid states, was to blame. To find this substance, Cade took urine from people with mania and injected it into the abdominal cavities of guinea pigs. Thinking that the urine of manic patients was more lethal to guinea pigs than the urine of regular patients, he guessed that manics have higher levels of a toxin in their urine. Cade knew of two toxins in the urine: urea and uric acid. The amount of urea in the urine of manic and non-manic patients did not differ remarkably, so he began testing uric acid. 

Uric acid does not dissolve in water, and Cade needed a soluble form of uric acid to inject into the guinea pigs. Adding lithium to improve the solubility of uric acid, he injected the guinea pigs with lithium urate. To his surprise, the injections of lithium urate calmed the guinea pigs. Cade, of course, was wrong. The guinea pigs were not calm; they were poisoned. But Cade misinterpreted the signs of poisoning as calmness and wondered if it could calm humans too. He learned that the calming action was not due to urate but, instead, lithium. He started experimenting on himself before experimenting on his human patients. 

The psychiatric community took notice of Cade’s raw experiments and lithium was subsequently introduced as a new treatment for Manic-Depression (Bipolar Disorder). 

Lithium is a naturally occurring element named after the Greek word for stone (lithos) because it is present in rocks. Historically, people have frequented lithium-rich mineral springs for their supposed healing properties. 

Which beverage ‘takes the ouch out of grouch’? 

Launched shortly before the stock market crash in 1929, Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda proved a hit during the Depression. The soda appealed to a wide audience and recommended itself “for hospital or home use”. The drink’s name was later changed to 7-UP. During the Depression, 7-UP contained an ingredient which serves as our modern medical treatment for bipolar patients. Lithium. Lithium was listed on the 7-UP label until the 1940s. Today, lithium is the first line treatment for mania and bipolar depression.