PD762 - ASSOCIATION OF LITHIUM IN WATER WITH CANCER PREVALENCE AND INCIDENCE IN GERMANY: AN ECOLOGICAL STUDY

PD762

ASSOCIATION OF LITHIUM IN WATER WITH CANCER PREVALENCE AND INCIDENCE IN GERMANY: AN ECOLOGICAL STUDY

P. Stürmer^1,*, U. Schwarz², K. S. Weber¹, M. Birringer³, W. Lieb¹, G. Rimbach⁴

¹Institute of Epidemiology, ²Institute of Human Nutrition and Food Science,, Kiel University, Kiel, ³Department of Nutritional, Food and Consumer Sciences, Fulda University of Applied Sciences, Fulda, ⁴Institute of Human Nutrition and Food Science, Kiel University, Kiel, Germany

Rationale: Recent findings from the United States suggest an inverse association between lithium levels in drinking water and cancer risk, yet data from other regions remain scarce. Therefore, we examined the association of lithium in water with cancer prevalence and incidence in Germany.

Methods: Using district keys, lithium levels of 381 mineral and medicinal waters from 120 German districts was linked to data on cancer prevalence (age- and sex-stratified) and incidence (age-standardized, sex-stratified), each given as mean values from 2017 through 2023, from the German Center for Cancer Registry Data. Associations between water lithium levels and cancer measures were assessed using Spearman’s rank correlation. Further, the German districts were grouped based on low (<50µg/L), medium (50–199µg/L), and high (≥200µg/L) water lithium levels and differences in cancer measures between districts were assessed using boxplots with Kruskal-Wallis-tests.

Results: Of German districts where water samples were collected, 88, 22, and 10 exhibited low, medium, and high lithium concentrations in the water, respectively. Rho for lithium levels and mean cancer prevalence ranged from -0.16 to 0.09 in men (all p>0.05) and from -0.06 to 0.12 in women (all p>0.05) across different age groups. Mean cancer prevalence was slightly lower in districts with high water lithium concentrations for some age groups (p<0.05), but overall, across all ages and both sexes, no consistent statistically significant association was observed. Associations of lithium levels with mean cancer incidence yielded similar results.

Conclusion: In this ecological study, no clear association between water lithium exposure and cancer prevalence and incidence across all age groups in Germany could be inferred, contradicting previous findings. Further studies in this context based on individual level data of lithium exposure and cancer measures are needed.

Disclosure of Interest: None declared