(HealthDay News) -- A new medical review finds that lithium, a common treatment for bipolar disorder, can lead to weight gain and causes high rates of abnormalities in the thyroid and parathyroid glands.

But the researchers found few signs of a link to skin problems or hair loss, and a suspected connection to birth defects hasn't been proven, according to the report published in the Jan. 20 online edition of The Lancet.

Overall, the findings reaffirm lithium's role as "a treatment of choice for bipolar disorder," two doctors wrote in an accompanying editorial.

While lithium is less popular than it was in the 1970s and '80s as a treatment for bipolar disorder, it's probably the most effective available mood stabilizer, said Dr. Bryan Bruno, acting chairman of the department of psychiatry at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, who was not involved with the review but is familiar with the findings.

"It remains very beneficial, and it's still a first-line agent for bipolar disorder," Bruno said.

But lithium has a variety of possible side effects, noted the authors of the review, led by Dr. John Geddes of the University of Oxford, Warneford Hospital in Oxford, England. Their analysis included 385 studies. Read more...

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