66: Dr. Arwen Podesta, Dr. Joe Mather: Collaborative Strategies for Better Mental Health Outcomes

In this vivacious and informative presentation for IMMH 2023,Dr. Arwen Podesta, board certified in psychiatry, addiction medicine, holistic & integrative medicine, and forensic psychiatry, and author of Hooked  and Dr. Joe Mather, board certified in family medicine and functional medicine, discusses their fruitful experience of working together as a collaborative, intra-disciplinary team for better patient outcomes. They also discuss how to use integrative approaches to diagnose and treat the root causes of mental health symptoms, and delve into the key drivers of mental illness, and their most effective, evidence-based non-pharmaceutical treatments. 

In this fascinating and lively presentation, Dr. Mather and Dr. Podesta illustrate on a case by case basis the way they interact on a patient’s care, bringing their unique and separate approaches to bear, and showing how the power of their collaboration yields much better results than when they work alone. They take us through the key workups and diagnostic labs; the most common biochemical root causes of mental health issues; and the most effective evidence-based solutions. 

In this interview learn: 

• What is a great definition of integrative medicine, and why is it so effective for helping patients heal? 

• How collaborative care works in practice, avoiding its potential pitfalls, and why it’s more fun and yields better patient outcomes than when each doctor working in their silos

• The most common mental health symptoms, their most frequent biological root causes, and how to best diagnose them

• The most common genetic SNPs associated with mental disorders and why these don’t always need to be tested but can be ascertained through phenotype

• The 8 key evidence-based non-pharmaceutical interventions that have been shown to help with mental health and addiction

• An overview of the key hormones, nutrients, toxins (including moulds and heavy metals), gut and methylation issues affecting mental health and addiction