Dr. Deb Muth 00:03
Welcome to Let's Talk Wellness Now. I am your host, Dr. Deb.
And today, I have the pleasure of meeting with Dr. James Greenblatt. I've known Dr. Greenblatt for a very long time. We, started lecturing together, gosh, over 15 years ago.
And he is an amazing practitioner. Dr. Greenblatt is dual board certified in psychiatry and internationally recognized.
as a pioneer in functional and integrative psychiatry. He's widely regarded as the leading expert on the clinical application of low-dose lithium for mental health.
Dr. Greenblatt has spent more than 30 years advancing precision medicine-based approaches that move beyond symptom management to address the root causes of mental illness.
And after earning his medical degree at George Washington University.
Dr. Greenblatt completed his psychiatry and residency there as a fellow in child and adolescent psychiatry.
Joined John Hopkins Medical School, and he currently serves as an assistant clinical professor of Psychiatry at Tufts University. He is a prolific author. Dr. Greenblatt has written 9 books, including his newest book, Finally Hopeful.
in… available in January of 2026. We can ask him about this today.
And his bestsellers finally focused the breathwork, natural treatment plan for ADHD,
Answers to anorexia, Functional and Integrative Medicine for Antidepressant withdrawal, and nutritional lithium, and Untold tale of Mineral and Transforms Lives, that heals the brain.
He has founded, in 2019, the Psychiatry Redefined, a leading educational platform training clinicians worldwide in functional and integrative psychiatry. He is a sought-after international speaker. Dr. Greenblatt regularly lectures
On nutritional psychiatry and the transformative role of functional medicine.
I am super excited to have him here with us today. This is going to be a pleasure. You guys are going to love this conversation that we are going to have.
And I am going to pick his brain today on functional and integrative psychology and psychiatry, and combining nutrition, biochemistry, and lifestyle with mental health care.
I'm really, really happy to have Dr. Greenblatt with us, so I am going to bring him on, and we are going to have this amazing conversation with my friend.
Welcome back to Let's Talk Wellness Now. I'm your host, Dr. Deb, and I have with me Dr. James Greenblatt, who I have followed for… we were just chatting about this for over 20 years.
He is amazing in what he is doing, and we are going to have this conversation today about integrative psychiatry and the future of mental health. So, welcome to the show, Dr. Greenblatt.
James greenblatt md 03:20
Thank you, Dips, good to be with you.
Dr. Deb Muth 03:22
Now, you've been pioneering this integrative psychiatry for decades. What really inspired you to bridge nutrition and psychiatry long before it's become mainstream?
James greenblatt md 03:35
You know, I developed an interest in college, you know, studying nutrition, and then I remember writing papers on orthomolecular psychiatry, high dose, vitamin B3 for schizophrenia.
So, I really did not think I'd be a psychiatrist. I wanted to be a pediatrician when I went to medical school, but, just early interest in nutrition and brain function.
And it's been my career now for 30-plus years.
Dr. Deb Muth 04:05
Wow. Can you define what integrative psychiatry actually means, and how it's different from traditional psychiatry for most people who wouldn't be familiar with that term?
James greenblatt md 04:17
Sure, I mean, I have to add the word functional as well. I mean, I think, you know, I call myself a functional psychiatrist, but for most of my career, and every book, and everything I did, I would have to use words like functional and integrative.
Medicine for mental illness. And, you know, I define integrative medicine as the… Adjunctive lifestyle, mindfulness.
And diet, sleep, and exercise.
Dr. Deb Muth 04:46
Mmm.
James greenblatt md 04:46
And I kind of use the term functional for kind of a deeper root cause dive, looking at nutritional deficiencies, looking at hormones, looking at genetics. And, you know, to treat patients with mental health challenges, we need both integrative and functional medicine.
Dr. Deb Muth 05:05
That's awesome. You know, in our integrative space, we often kind of joke that there's no such thing as a Prozac deficiency, right? Can you explain to our listeners how nutrient deficiencies, gut health, or inflammation can play a role in mental illness?
James greenblatt md 05:23
Sure, I mean, I think the most important
Beginning of this conversation would be that, you know, 10 people with depression, there might be 10 different underlying factors.
Dr. Deb Muth 05:35
Yeah.
James greenblatt md 05:35
And we do know that there's not an antidepressant deficiency, so we have to look deeper. And… and that's,
just different than our current psychiatry model, where it's just symptomatic-based medicine. Everyone who's depressed.
It's an antidepressant.
And by looking at functional integrative medicine, we're looking at B12 and vitamin D and zinc and magnesium. We're looking at hormones, we're looking at the gut, and we're trying to determine what might be either causing or contributing to that person's depression.
Dr. Deb Muth 06:10
Is there a particular,
flavor that you see more commonly with others, like depression versus anxiety versus bipolar. Is there a particular underlying factor that you see more commonly than others?
James greenblatt md 06:27
Well, the short answer is no, and that's why this work takes time, because you have to think.
You know, every patient that walks in the office is different. I mean, I think the overarching umbrella is nutritional deficiencies, you know, whether… regardless of weight, regardless of diet. I mean, I have people coming in who've been eating…
You know, these ketogenic or paleo diets, you know, perfect organic foods, and are profoundly nutritionally deficient.
So I think nutritional deficiencies would be number one, and then, you know, the whole host of, you know, infections and hormone problems and inflammatory issues related to celiac disease is really common in the mental health space that's ignored.
Dr. Deb Muth 07:14
Yeah. Celiac disease is really not paid attention too much, other than thinking that it's damaging the gut. They don't really think about all the other aspects of the body that are being affected by the gut not being able to absorb the nutrients properly and then utilize them properly. It's really sad.
James greenblatt md 07:34
we find out… and there's research to support it. That's the tragedy. This is not something, as clinicians, that we found. We have many, many years of research showing high rates of anxiety and depression,
you know, amongst those with, celiac disorder because of this chronic malnutrition, and many patients present without any GI symptoms, just mental health complaints, but nobody's looking at celiac.
Dr. Deb Muth 08:02
Yeah. You know, I'm sure there's people that are listening to us thinking, there's no way that
Everybody who's depressed or anxious has a nutritional deficiency. When we're… live in a country where there's so much abundance of food, and the obesity rates are high, and most people are very plump, how could those people be deficient in nutrients? What do you say to people who think like that?
James greenblatt md 08:28
Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, we have,
what's called high caloric malnutrition, so regardless of weight,
I would say the vast majority of patients with a mental health issue
I would say my best guess would be 90-plus percent.
Dr. Deb Muth 08:47
Wow.
James greenblatt md 08:47
We would find nutritional deficiencies.
Dr. Deb Muth 08:51
And part of this, we've discovered, is genetics.
James greenblatt md 08:56
People having, kind of, genetic needs for Higher amounts of certain micronutrients.
Some of it is just the kinds of foods people are eating. The kind of ultra-processed food actually strips the body of micronutrients.
So, it is just so common, and many of these tests are pretty simple that your primary care doctor could do in the office.
Dr. Deb Muth 09:22
So, traditional labs can identify some of these nutritional deficiencies. They don't necessarily have to invest thousands of dollars in advanced nutrient testing to find these things out.
James greenblatt md 09:35
Absolutely. I mean, I think, you know, oftentimes when we're working with a patient who has failed traditional psychiatric treatment, we do need some functional, testing, but
I'm quite convinced we could change the trajectory of our mental health epidemic in this country by some labs that are covered by every insurance company on the planet. Like, people think of vitamin D as, you know, building bones or immune function.
It has dramatic relationships to mental health problems, demonstrated over 30 years of research. So vitamin D and B12 and folate, all simple blood tests that are covered by all health insurances.
Dr. Deb Muth 10:18
You know, with the change of genetics, MTHFR is so popularly known these days. It's probably the most popular genetic mutation that people know of.
And in the mental health space, it plays a significant role as well in that absorption of B12 and folat
