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The Missing Link in Mental Health - Dr. James Greenblatt on Nutritional Psychiatry & ADHD
00:40:08
In this powerful interview, Dr. James Greenblatt—integrative psychiatrist and author—reveals the groundbreaking science behind nutritional psychiatry and its impact on mental health conditions like ADHD, depression, and anxiety. With decades of...
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- [00:05]
A
You unlock this door with the key of compassion. Beyond it is another world, a world of science, a world of common sense, a world of sanity. You're moving into a land of both empathy and ethics, of nutritional knowledge and empowerment. You've just crossed over to Dr. Osborne. So, Dr. Greenblatt, thank you so much for joining us today.
- [00:32]
B
Very glad to be with you. Appreciate the opportunity to share some thoughts.
- [00:37]
A
Yeah, I'd love to know more about your background story and how you got into integrative and functional psychiatry. So many of the psychiatrists that I've talked to historically have, have been more traditional minded. But what, what takes a psychiatrist, what kind of journey takes you down the path of nutri and functional medicine?
- [01:01]
B
Well, I actually went into medical school many years ago thinking I was going to cure the world, you know, with brown rice and kale, and was vegetarian at the time. And I came out, you know, nine years later as a psychopharmacologist treating kids with medications. And so it didn't take long to get out in private practice to realize the limitations of medicine. And then from the 1990s, I've been exploring and researching and kind of trying to communicate the literature to clinicians about what a profound influence diet has on mental health. Thank God the research community has caught up. And most of the things we've been saying for 30 years has been shown to be evidence based on.
- [01:53]
A
Did you have any great mentors or influencers on, you know, on your career path? Like, I mean, names like Abram Hoffer to me come to mind in, in that realm, but I don't, I don't know who you've read or kind of if there were any that really got you thinking differently.
- [02:11]
B
Yeah, no, Abraham Offer is the guy. I did a paper on his work in college before I even had any thought of going into psychiatry. And I've been part of the orthomolecular society and got to meet Dr. Hoffer a number of times. So. Absolutely. His kind of wisdom and his ability to think beyond a medication was an inspiration for me even before I got to Medical School. So Dr. Abraham Hoffer, Linus Pauling, and Roger Williams, an old name who just made things very simple about helping people appreciate how different we all are biochemically.
- [02:56]
A
Yeah, yeah, same here. I read Biochemical Individuality in grad school and it changed my trajectory as well. Let's talk about anxiety. I know right now especially, you know, Covid post Covid, the younger world has really been racked. I mean, statistically, we've seen that skyrocketing can you talk a little bit about that?
- [03:17]
B
Sure. I mean, at this point, you know, it's. Anxiety is the number one mental health challenge around the globe. And what has been particularly frightening is our kids and adolescents often paralyzed by anxiety. And we can think of all the external, you know, things in our environment, from social media to watching TV about fighting and bombs and wars, which maybe we didn't have 50 years ago. But I also think it's also clear that then the research is supporting it, that our diets, the diets we're feeding our children, ultra processed foods, lack of key minerals have played a role. And that's most of what my work has been, is helping parents understand some of these nutritional deficiencies affecting to the course of anxiety in kids.
- [04:12]
A
So, so just educating parents about better, better diet practices and policies at home, is that a big core of your, of your platform then?
- [04:22]
B
Well, I mean, I think there are enough people saying eat well and exercise and, and I think as a functional psychiatrist in my world, I'm doing a lot of objective testing. You know, I'm saying I don't know what's going on, but I'm going to do these five or six tests to look at levels of magnesium and copper and zinc and amino acids and fatty acids and food allergies or reactions to gluten. And I'm going to determine if there's something biochemically contributing to the anxiety. And 8 out of 10 times we're going to find a number of problems that can just really support recovery. I mean, medicines work better if you have to use medicines, Therapy works better if you're using psychotherapy. And some of our lifestyle mindfulness approaches all work better when we can kind of fill in these nutritional deficiencies.
- [05:22]
A
So testing to get an objective biochemical basis for making your recommendations is something you're doing very frequently then.
- [05:32]
B
Yeah, it's really the key. It's the key of all the teaching I've been doing. And again, as a psychiatrist, myself and my colleagues, we're seeing patients that have failed, you know, medication, have failed psychotherapy and really struggling. And I don't want to be part of that, just making another guess. I want to be objective and have a lot of data in front of me and saying, you know, listen, Peter, you're deficient in magnesium and you have a genetic vulnerability to need a little more vitamin D. And then it's, it's much easier to make a difference and to pretty much eliminate the symptoms.
- [06:17]
A
Do you use a lot of nutritional therapy or, or, you know, and in Dosing or do you more rely heavily on food or is it just kind of a combination of the two?
- [06:28]
B
I. I think my practice is heavily on finding nutritional deficiencies or metabolic abnormalities. And so nutritional supplements are probably 70% of it and medications when needed, but always work better after the nutritional repletion. And then oftentimes, you know, in the mental health world, there's still a role for psychotherapy.
- [06:56]
A
Yeah. What has been your experience? I found one of your articles a month or two ago on gluten and psychiatric dysfunction or disorders. Can you talk a little bit about your experience with the gluten free diet as a tool to help people feel better?
- [07:17]
B
Yeah. I mean, there's so many paths towards gluten and mental illness. And the research is actually quite extensive. And that's what's so frustrating that none of my colleagues address it or bring it up. You know, I came about the relationship between gluten sensitivity and mental health challenges probably 25 years ago when I started working with patients with anorexia nervosa. So eating disorder patients malnourished, and if we dug deeper, we found that they had, you know, antibodies to gluten and biopsy, they had celiac disease. So there was tremendous relationship between eating disorders and celiac disease going both ways. Higher incidence of anorexic, developing celiac and celiac patients have a higher incidence of anorexia. And then, you know, over the course of doing all this testing that I described to every patient that walks in the office, we're looking at iron and B12 and D, and I was getting deficiencies in healthy young adults who were eating meat and vegetables and a healthy diet. And the only path to these nutritional deficiencies were often cilia. And so one of the things I stress in my teaching is you don't always have to have GI symptoms of celiac disease. Oftentimes we have patients presenting to a psychiatrist office, their only symptom is anxiety or depression. And if you don't look for celiac disease, you might be missing the cause of that anxiety and depression.
- [09:01]
A
Yeah, that. That kind of reminds me of some of the work that Marios Hadjivasalu at Oxford is doing on gluten as a nerve toxin. And they're looking at things like cerebellar ataxia and neuropathy independent of GI symptoms. So they've actually redefined, in a, in a way, gluten sensitivity as a neurological disease. Have you. Have you. Do you do antibody testing, like for neural antibodies to determine whether or not gluten could be contributing to neural inflammation or is it more along the lines of kind of classic antigliadin anti tissue transglutaminase anti antimycial antibodies?
- [09:39]
B
Yeah, routinely it's been just the anti gliadin antibodies. I think that. And there's another world of schizophrenia and gluten, which is just fascinating. And I wrote a chapter for Dr. Hoffer's new book, a new edition of his old works. They asked me to put a chapter on gluten and schizophrenia. And the research is extensive. Some of it is just celiac disease undiagnosed. But then there are other mechanisms of gluten sensitivity and immunological responses unrelated to celiac that contributes to psychosis and schizophrenia. So, you know, as a child psychiatrist, I try not to make too many rules about diet until I do the testing. But for anyone with psychosis and schizophrenia, I would strongly recommend, and hundreds of patients have done well, a gluten free diet regardless of any testing.
- [10:44]
A
Just because you've seen that, that, that well of a response and, and there's enough literature to back the diet change. Is that.
- [10:52]
B
Yeah, hundreds of articles, again, high relationship of undiagnosed celiac. And then there's some other unique mechanisms that they found, immunological mechanisms, but it's not always the answer. But almost everyone gets better. And then we can start digging deeper and looking at some of these other root causes.
- [11:18]
A
Do you have an opinion on, you know, you mentioned some of them do definitely test positive from a gluten perspective. And there are other mechanisms. But do you have an opinion on. You know, there's a lot coming out now about glyphosate as an example, and just the way the bread is processed today and the bromine additives as dough conditioners. Do you, do you explore any of that or see any of those in your patients directly?
- [11:44]
B
You know, I don't test routinely. A lot of people come to me with these, you know, toxin screens with, you know, elevations of glyphosate. And I'm sure that it's a, it's a mechanism. And that's why, you know, I'm convinced that so many people that benefit from like a ketogenic diet, it's not necessarily going into ketosis, it's eliminating gluten and refined sugar and a host of other foods that probably have high glyphosate.
- [12:16]
A
Yeah, that's absolutely been my observation as well. What are the top nutrition deficiencies that you see when you test people with gluten issues? Gluten, neurologically induced psychiatric problems? Is there Like a cluster that you commonly see?
- [12:35]
B
Yeah, I mean, I think the big ones that usually scream out and there could be endless numbers, but zinc is the one that keeps coming up that we see a lot, particularly in kids and with ADHD and anorexia and even those that have been on a gluten free diet continually persist with zinc deficiency, which affects digestion, brain function, so many other aspects of mental health. So the big ones that I've seen would be zinc, some of the core amino acids like tryptophan and B12, and sometimes iron. But oftentimes I've diagnosed celiac disease by just seeing these deficiencies in healthy young males who are eating a great diet but can't pay attention or depressed. And we see all these deficiencies and then we just go back and end up biting out at cilia.
- [13:36]
A
So just the malabsorption component or would you say the inflammatory induction leading to nutrient loss Right, through nutrient protective mechanisms. What would you say?
- [13:50]
B
Yeah, I think it's a combination. But because I have the testing in front of me and I see that there's like a 22 year old male is iron deficient, you know, and zinc deficient. And then when I replete that they feel a little better. So, you know, I lean more towards these because of the destruction of the intestine, that the nutritional deficiencies, you know, just affect brain function. And that's the core of all my work is looking at our individual differences and what happens when we're deficient in certain micronutrients.
- [14:27]
A
I love that you're looking for that. I mean it. To me, it's a breath of fresh air. So many people with psychiatric problems are never even cross their mind that it could be contributed to by B12 or zinc or iron deficiency or omega 3 deficiencies. But it's such a critical element for human physiology and function. Do you do neurotransmitter testing as well? Or is it mainly you start fundamentally with, with vitamins, minerals, amino acids?
- [14:57]
B
Yeah, I don't routinely do neurotransmitter testing. I, I used to when it first came out and it just wasn't consistent findings. And so I'm looking more for the vitamins and minerals, the, the macronutrients, like levels of amino acids, fasting plasma, amino acids, fatty acids. You know, I also look at, you know, heavy metals, copper, lead, and, and then a test called cryptopyrrol is an important part of our kind of psychiatric workup.
- [15:30]
A
Do you find a lot of pyroluria or that type of problem or or is that, you know, what. What would you say? How many people are you seeing with anxiety? I also have that issue.
- [15:43]
B
Yeah. I don't know if I could come up with a percentage. We did one study looking at markers of dysbiosis, and we got about 15% to a psychiatric practice that that was the cause. Treated anxiety, went away for crypto pyro, you know, it might be the same, maybe a little higher, maybe 20%. But what is so critical, I think, for people to understand is that for that 20%, a very inexpensive test has a very simple treatment plan and can completely eliminate some of the symptoms of sometimes really devastating anxiety. You know, I think there are people out there talk about pyloria and they have a list of symptoms. I've seen every psychiatric symptom associated with pyloria, so I don't think there's one checklist. But if it's positive and you can supply the extra B6, it's just an incredible intervention.
- [16:51]
A
Yeah. I've got two questions. One maybe, maybe for our audience to find that situation, that condition, because that. That may be over a lot of people's heads. We'll start with that question and then I have one more follow up to it.
- [17:05]
B
Sure. Cryptopyril is a urine test that's been around for a long time. It's one of the few things that we don't have a lot of research on, but clinicians have been doing it probably for 40 years. And we look at a marker in the urine and what this chemical does, it's a pyrrole. And that chemical structure, it binds two micronutrients, vitamin B6 and zinc, and pretty much just robs them from the body. And these are both critical nutrients for brain function. You need vitamin B6 to make every neurotransmitter in the brain. You need zinc to make most of the neurotransmitters in the brain. So as this cryptopyrl goes up, you become more and more deficient in B6 and zinc. It is likely a genetic vulnerability, and it certainly gets worse under stress. We know that. And the intervention is really simple. It's just vitamin B6 and zinc. So, you know, we just had a patient admitted to a hospital for depression, anxiety, poor response to medicines, had an elevated crypto Pyrol of 25, started giving B6 and zinc, and we start seeing improvement. There's not many things in the world of psychiatry where we can look at this objective data and make an intervention.
- [18:39]
A
Do you find with B6? Are you using pyridoxine hydrochloride or are you using pyridoxyl 5 phosphate? And, and if you are using one versus the other, are there reasons why you would, why you would make that decision?
- [18:56]
B
Yeah, I tend to use if possible, combination of Both the, the P5P, you know, everyone's been talking about as an activated form. But I remember talking with a pharmacologist who explained to me that the body has to break down P5P, get rid of the phosphorus for it to be absorbed, then puts back the phosphorus after absorption. And I asked him the question because I wasn't getting as good a results with P5P alone. So B6 pyridoxine seems to work P5P and B6 seems to work a little better. There's no research to support it and oftentimes the dosages need to be pretty high, 50 to 100 milligrams to start. And then sometimes we need to go up higher.
- [19:46]
A
And in that, in that 50 to 100, is that, is that a dosage that you would use like say on a young adult or on a child? What are the differences in doses for children versus say like a 16 year old?
- [20:01]
B
Sure. For children probably start at 50 and 25 twice a day. And for adolescents and adults, 50 twice a day, which is 100. And I usually would never go above that for a patient without cryptopyrl or pyloria. But for someone with pyloria, if the levels don't go down or they're still symptomatic, I might have to increase to 200 milligrams of B6. Okay.
- [20:30]
A
Ever have any issues with anyone having or reporting some of the toxicity symptoms that are, are, are discussed with B6?
- [20:38]
B
You know, I haven't in my practice. Clearly what you're describing is, is not uncommon. Some neuropathy with B6 over 100 milligrams. And it, it's clear it has to be, you know, shared with the patient. But with those with cryptopyrl, I've just never seen it. But, but what we do know is anyone that's had it within a day or two of stopping the B6, it disappears.
- [21:07]
A
Yeah, that's been my experience too. I generally don't see any long term B6 toxicity at doses below 200mg at least. But I think that just is a merit to testing and not guessing. Right, because you're targeting who needs it more based on their own biochemistry versus just speculation. And that to me that goes a long way in making the right decision.
- [21:31]
B
Exactly, yeah.
- [21:36]
A
Let's talk a little bit more about, about other nutrients that you use. I know you, you've written a number of books and, and you've used lithium for quite a long while. And I'd like to. A lot of people fear lithium from a nutritional perspective. They think of lith lithium as a, as a psychiatric medication. But can you talk about nutritional lithium and its importance and role in, in, in anxiety and other neurological and psychiatric problems?
- [22:04]
B
Sure, yeah. Lithium has been a topic of mine of interest again for almost 40 years. And you know what people and I didn't realize is lithium is an element in the earth's crust, you know, so it's part of rocks. It's been around since The Big Bang, 13 billion years ago, and it just settled in the earth's crust. And so it's just a critically important nutrient for brain health. It's not just a medication. We think of lithium carbonate as a prescription medicine for bipolar disorder. And when we think about that, most of the time we think of side effects. Right. Because there are side effects. Excuse me. So I don't use prescription lithium at high doses. I use low doses and I use lithium orotate, which is a low dose over the counter lithium. And at these dosages we have research to support improvement in mood and mental health and anxiety. Irritability is, I speak a lot about irritability in kids, autism and ADHD with low dose lithium. And some of the most exciting research is lithium, low dose lithium and dementia. And one study being done in upper state New York is on Parkinson's disorder. So people are now kind of rediscovered. Lithium can be used at lower dosages for, have profound changes to neurochemistry.
- [23:49]
A
And so you've just seen a lot of really good outcomes using it. Do you test for lithium? Is there a test that you measure or run? Or is this more. When you have somebody maybe who's struggling and not feeling better with nutritional support and diet change, is this more of, let's say like a treatment add on if they're not getting better?
- [24:11]
B
Yeah. I'd say most of my use of lithium is based on clinical decision making, but there's some method to that. One of the most important ones is family history. So family history of addiction, aggression or bipolar disorder just helps me sort through. This patient might have a higher need for lithium. And then I also look at clinical symptoms. Irritability, mood, ability, aggression, impulsivity, they might need higher lithium. And then also I do look at a trace mineral hair test so we can look at levels of lithium in the hair. And when I started this test 30 years ago, I'd say 60, 70% had normal levels. Now I would say 60, 70% have low levels of lithium in their hair sample. And I don't know if it's some toxin in the environment, binding, getting the way, or just everyone's drinking bottled water now where the lithium is filtered out. Most of our lithium we obtain from tap water.
- [25:28]
A
Okay. Yeah. And everybody's using heavy filters because tap water is so contaminated. So that I guess. Yeah, that, that makes sense. So talk to me a little bit about the, the symptoms that you would. You, you mentioned family history, but what are, what are some of the other symptoms that you see improve with lithium?
- [25:52]
B
Yeah, the. The kind of most significant one that I would encourage people to think about because it cuts across so many psychological and psychiatric diagnoses is this concept of irritability.
- [26:05]
A
Right.
- [26:05]
B
Irritability. Somebody who's chronically angry and maybe with pits, you know, bouts of more aggression or disruptive moods, but irritability. And we see it in those trying to come off alcohol. We see it in certain individuals with depression, anxiety. For autism, they actually approved a medication called Risperdal, an antipsychotic, not for the treatment of autism, but for irritability associated with autism. So I have found 2mg, 4mg of lithium orotate to work as well for some kids as this antipsychotic. Risperdal.
- [26:50]
A
You said 2 to 4 milligrams.
- [26:53]
B
Yeah. I try to start everyone off at the more therapeutic dosages, which is around 2mg and then the 5mg, 10mg. I usually stop at about 30mg for adults for lithium orotate.
- [27:07]
A
Okay, you mentioned medicine, Risperdol. Can you talk a little bit about, about some of the psych meds? I mean, I know there's a, there's a long list of them that are used. But, you know, part, part of my background is, is investigating, you know, drug induced nutritional deficiencies or other untoward nutritional side effects like some of the meds can contribute to high blood sugar and diabetes. Can you talk a little bit about that? About just some of the traditional things people, if people are on medicine watching this, you know, what are some of the most common medications, antidepressant, anti anxiety meds that you see people on that have nutritional consequences?
- [27:55]
B
Yeah, I mean, I think it's sad that most people don't check any nutritional deficiencies before starting the medication. And we have good research saying low levels of things like folate and zinc, poor response to the medication. And then we have research saying you can augment the medications. I'm talking about antidepressants with folate and zinc, where the medicine works better. I think it's just been. Psychiatrists just don't look at labs and don't look at that relationship that you're describing. So with the antidepressants, I don't think there are clear nutritional deficiencies that we repeatedly see. There are many that. That we see. So that's why testing is important. The one that I've been talking about a lot that is clinically very relevant is what happens when someone takes stimulants. So all these ADHD kids and now some adults taking amphetamines for adhd, and I believe that disrupts the magnesium metabolism pretty dramatically and essentially causes a functional deficiency of magnesium. So a lot of the side effects we see on stimulants with kids, most of them can disappear with supplemental magnesium.
- [29:22]
A
Interesting. So just. And what kind of doses are you using for that?
- [29:29]
B
Depending on the age, but pretty much the therapeutic dosage we would use for any other kind of nutritional intervention for, you know, two, four to 500 milligrams per day total for magnesium, four to 500.
- [29:45]
A
Any particular form of magnesium you find more beneficial?
- [29:50]
B
You know, I've just been using glycinate for many, many years, and I'm just. It works. So that's pretty much what I stick with magnesium glycinate, you know, twice a day.
- [30:00]
A
Okay, okay, twice a day. What, what else do you. Do you commonly treat with nutrition? So we've talked a little bit about anxiety and depression. You've mentioned schizophrenia. Are there other common conditions that you see that you have found diet change or nutritional supplementation to be extremely beneficial for?
- [30:26]
B
Well, I guess I would venture to say every psychiatric disorder, there's a role for this testing, looking deeper, functional psychiatry. And there's a role for diet and lifestyle changes. We have research showing healthy a Mediterranean diet can improve depression. We have dramatic research showing ultra processed foods increases risk of depression, anxiety and dementia. And then the nutritional research is scattered all over the place, and nobody's kind of organized it into helping our clinicians understand it. But I can't tell you how many of the articles there are on low vitamin D and major mental illness, suicide, Alzheimer's, depression, but completely ignored. And there are some mental health clinics where the docs and the nurse practitioners aren't allowed to do these blood tests.
- [31:28]
A
Why aren't they allowed? Is there, is there Like a stranglehold from the, from the powers that be on the, on the, on the management side of things.
- [31:37]
B
You know, I've tried to ask. Some of it might be cost, you know, in some systems, other times they don't pay for the cost. It's just slowing down. What we need to do, which is medication visits. It's really appalling.
- [31:54]
A
What do you think the future of psychiatry is? I mean, you're on the cutting edge of functional care, but when do you think your colleagues catch up and come into this century of understanding that diet, lifestyle, nutrition, nutrients matter?
- [32:14]
B
Well, I'm quite convinced things are changing. I'm optimistic. You can get a fellowship now in lifestyle medicine. You can take a two year program after you graduate a fellowship and learn that sleep is good for you and exercise is good for you and maybe you should help patients eat more vegetables. But anyways, it's there. And there are mindfulness programs at Harvard and Stanford where you can get training in so people can appreciate the lifestyle. What's taking a little more time, but it's slowly happening is the role of some of these micronutrients in mental illness and the role of functional medicine in mental illness. But based on the interest in our teaching program and the community of young psychiatrists, I mean, they're taking supplements to support themselves. They want to know how they can help their patients.
- [33:12]
A
Do you think it's a generational piece? The newer docs coming through are, are more likely to be interested in this?
- [33:19]
B
I'm seeing a change. Yeah. And just the fact that more and more medications hasn't meant improvement in mental health care. Right. Rates are going up, suicide rates are going up, depression rates, anxiety rates are all going up. So our current model, right. Symptomatic based psycho pharm psychotherapy has not made a dent in some of these major mental illnesses. So I think the model of care is slowly going to shift.
- [33:52]
A
Yeah. What do you see as being the next big step forward? Or is there one? Or is it just a slow transition from current beliefs to hey, this is not working and now we're being feet are being held to the fire to have evidence that what the American taxpayers are spending healthcare dollars on actually has an outcome that favors the population's health?
- [34:20]
B
Yeah. The fact that it's not working never has really helped the field of psychiatry. They'll just kind of shift to another mechanism or explanation. I think what is helping now is the research and the good news. People obsessed with gut and bowel function. So we have great research on probiotics, and gut microbacteria affecting the brain. And there's just ongoing research on diet. Major universities looking at the ketogenic diet and mental illness. So there's slow changes within the academic community. What's frustrating to me when I talk to young doctors, that they're not getting this in their education, but the research is happening.
- [35:10]
A
So schools still, at least with the doctors that you have spoken with, they're still not teaching it, they're still not implementing it in the curriculum?
- [35:19]
B
No, not at all. Sometimes you can take an elective, an hour course in, you know, mindfulness or an hour course and something else, but it's not built into any training program, both for nurse practitioners and psychiatrists. You know, those groups are seeing most of the mental health patients.
- [35:42]
A
So then really, if a doctor wants to pursue this, they have to do postgraduate work beyond.
- [35:49]
B
Yeah, absolutely. Takes the right person who's committed to improving outcomes and it takes their own funds oftentimes and their own time. So it's a unique group that's been, you know, training with us over the last five years. And it's just too bad it's not part of our curriculum.
- [36:08]
A
Now you, you have training program, postgraduate program. Right. With faculty that helps doctors kind of move in this direction.
- [36:18]
B
Yeah. The education platform, psychiatryredefine.org we have free webinars. We have one coming up, I think next week on lithium. We have short programs, four weeks. And then most of our training has been a year long fellowship. So helping people over the course of a year learn this material so they can integrate into their practice. It's very hard to go to a conference and all of a sudden start prescribing, you know, magnesium, B12 and Sammy and all these other nutrients.
- [36:53]
A
Yeah, that's fantastic. So fellowship where doctors can, can have mentorship as well and an education is that is the fellowship has a mentor piece to it.
- [37:04]
B
Yeah, there's live supervision groups and then there's small mentoring groups as well as the recorded content. Yes.
- [37:11]
A
Nice, Nice. Yeah, that. Well, I mean, to me, that's. Thank you. That's. That's definitely helping. Have you trained a lot of doctors through your program? You said for the past five years you've had it going.
- [37:22]
B
Yeah, we've probably had close to a thousand so far. Sixteen different countries in the full fellowship. And then we have lots of smaller programs. Probably had over 10,000 people, you know, take some of our courses or our content. So people clearly want the information. We just got to translate it into, you know, that it's part of psychiatric treatment. It's not alternative medicine.
- [37:49]
A
Yeah, I think, I think that's well said. I mean, the shift, historically, it's always been fringe, alternative. What's the Spiderman stuff you're trying to do? That's not science. And what I just heard you say is that that needs to be incorporated in the mindset of, of mainstream care and not as fringe or alternative.
- [38:10]
B
Absolutely. Yes.
- [38:12]
A
Yeah. Love it. Well, this has been great. Very, very enlightening as well as is just very helpful because, you know, I just see. I see how mental disease decimates families and, you know, turns people's lives around. And so to have somebody like yourself and doctors around you being trained to really assess people more holistically with, with nutrition, it's just a relief. It's a breath of fresh air to have a conversation with you. Great.
- [38:45]
B
Well, thank you, Peter. Appreciate your work. And I think the word hopeful is, is really important that you use because so much of our mental health model is just, you know, one medication after another and, and patients and families feel anything but hopeful. But I do think functional psychiatry is a path where people can look forward to feeling better.
- [39:08]
A
Absolutely. Well, Dr. Greenblatt, thank you so much for your time today and thank you for all the work and effort you're putting into helping the world become a better place.
- [39:18]
B
Great. Thank you, Peter.
- [39:20]
A
Thanks. Thanks for tuning in to the Dr. Osborne zone. Don't forget to share like and subscribe for more content like this. And make sure you come back next Tuesday at 6pm Central Standard Time and Thursday at noon 30 for more episodes. Sam.