Abstract
In their editorial, Malhi et al1 advocate the more frequent use of lithium in patients with mood disorders which concurs with my appeal voiced two years ago2. Lithium has been universally accepted as the first choice mood‐stabilizer for maintenance treatment of bipolar disorder and exerts also anti‐suicidal, immunomodulatory, and neuroprotective action. However, the use of lithium in mood disorders has been greatly underutilized, due to the introduction and promoting other mood‐stabilizers both first‐generation (e.g. valproate) and second‐generation (e.g. olanzapine, quetiapine, lamotrigine), and perception of lithium as a “toxic drug” not only be the non‐psychiatrist physicians but also by the representatives of mainstream psychiatry, pointing to its side effects, mainly thyroid, renal and cognitive ones.