India, Sept. 18 -- Alzheimer's disease is the leading cause of dementia, accounting for roughly two-thirds of cases in India. Recent estimates put the number of Indians living with Alzheimer's in the millions, with cases expected to triple by 2050 as the population ages. Unlike heart disease or cancer, there are no treatments that stop or reverse the disease-only drugs that manage symptoms or slow decline modestly. For families, it means years of escalating memory loss, dependency, and caregiving strain.

Now, work published in Nature by researchers at Harvard Medical School suggests that the loss of lithium-a metal better known from psychiatric treatment-may play a powerful role in the onset of Alzheimer's disease. Even more intriguing, ...