Grant: CIHR Fellowship

Lithium continues to be a very important medication for the treatment of mood disorders like major depression and bipolar disorder. In many parts of Canada, approximately 1% of people use lithium and in 30-40% of people with bipolar disorder, lithium is more effective than other medications. Although many people with bipolar disorder are getting older, doctors are often concerned about the potential medical risks of lithium, including kidney disease. Making things more complicated, people with bipolar disorder often have kidney disease because of other reasons such as natural aging, diabetes mellitus, and high blood pressure. In this project, we will try to better understand why certain older lithium users and other patients with bipolar disorder develop kidney disease. To do this we will invite 100 older patients with bipolar disorder to participate in our study, half with lithium use, half using other medications. Using genetic tests, we will find out whether certain genes are associated with a higher risk of kidney disease. This will allow us to: •Use genetic tests to better predict which lithium users and other people with bipolar disorder will be at highest risk of kidney disease. This may eventually help doctors prescribe lithium appropriately when it is most safe. •Better understand the biological effects of lithium and bipolar disorder in the kidney. This will help us prevent and treat kidney disease in older lithium users and other people with bipolar disorder. •Since both the kidney and the brain have similarities in their biology - both parts of the body contain cells and molecules - our study could also potentially give us insights about how lithium affects the brain, which could help inform new treatments for bipolar disorder