ABSTRACT
Lithium and lithium carbonate are not fancy designer drugs fashioned by modern chemistry; they occur in nature. The element lithium is found everywhere on Earth in trace amounts, but the lithium we have as medication is mined from rocks. Lithium carbonate is a molecule composed of two atoms of lithium, one atom of carbon, and three atoms of oxygen. When this molecule enters water, the lithium atom separates from the molecule and is able to move freely in our bodily fluids. The lithium atom substitutes for what is missing in the brain chemistry of people with bipolar disorder.
