Instructor: Kathleen Friend, MD
It turns out being a fathead is perfectly normal.
The brain is one of the most lipid-rich organs in the body, yet lipid biology remains largely outside the everyday psychiatric conversation. This presentation explores what psychiatrists should know about cholesterol, essential fatty acids, omega-3s, membrane biology, and emerging lipidomic research.
Along the way, we’ll examine the surprising links between lipids and suicide, aggression, neurodevelopment, inflammation, and psychiatric treatment—and consider what a lipid result can, and cannot, tell us about the brain.
Learning Objectives
At the conclusion of this presentation, participants will be able to:
- Describe the major roles of cholesterol, phospholipids, and essential fatty acids in brain development, neuronal membranes, signaling, and inflammatory regulation.
- Explain why circulating cholesterol and fatty-acid measurements are not direct measures of lipid status within the brain.
- Summarize the evidence linking low cholesterol with suicide and aggression and contrast these findings with psychiatric outcomes associated with modern lipid-lowering therapies.
- Review the evidence for omega-3 fatty acids in psychiatric treatment, including differences between EPA and DHA and the limitations of current research.
- Apply a functional and precision-psychiatry framework to abnormal lipid findings by asking what underlying nutritional, metabolic, inflammatory, genetic, or oxidative processes may contribute to the observed biomarker.
Join us to discover why so many clinicians are turning to more holistic approaches to patient care—and how you can begin your journey toward a more whole-person, mental healthcare model.
All registrants will receive a link to watch the webinar recording post-event. Please note: Email reminders and replays are undeliverable to general emails (such as support@, info@ or admin@). This webinar recording will be available free for live attendees; attendees will be sent the recording link post-event. This webinar will remain free for the general public for two weeks post-webinar. After that point, the price increases to $19.
Kathleen Friends, MD
Kathleen Friend, MD is a board-certified psychiatrist with over 35 years of clinical experience spanning internal medicine, psychiatry, and integrative mental health. She earned her medical degree from the University of Miami School of Medicine and did residencies in Internal Medicine, Nuclear Medicine and Adult Psychiatry, followed by fellowship training in Geriatric Psychiatry.
For the past 15 years, Dr. Friend has specialized in Integrative and Functional Psychiatry. Former founder of Integrative Psychiatry of the Berkshires in MA, she is now founder of Integrative Psychiatry of the Rockies, serving patients in Colorado and Arizona, where her work emphasizes a biomedical root cause approach along with parent coaching based on a strength based approach coupled with nervous system regulation through heart rhythm meditation. She is also a practitioner and teacher of Heart Rhythm Meditation and strives to bring awareness of the power of the heart to mental health.
Over the past decade, her clinical and educational focus has centered on children and adolescents. She has developed a strength-based, heart-centered approach for families and is the author of two children’s books, The Greatness Chair, Sarah in the Greatness Chair, and the The Greatness Chair Solution– A Guide for Parents and Teachers.
Let’s redefine mental wellness together.
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