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From "Incurable" to Possibility: Dr. Aaron Hartman On Functional Medicine & Healing Beyond Limits
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- [00:01]
Richard Jacobs
You're listening to the Good Question podcast with Richard Jacobs. Our goal is to make each of our guests exclaim, hmm, that's a good question. I don't know the answer. Because when that happens, it means you, the listener, may be inspired to learn more beyond the interview and to ask great questions yourself that lead to new insights. In this podcast, we cover historical and current anthropology, comparative religion and history. Welcome. And let's get started.
- [00:36]
Hello, this is Richard Jacobs with the Food Question podcast. My yesterday is Dr. Aaron Hartman. He's the founder of Richmond Integrative and Functional Medicine. We're going to talk about his book on curable from Hopeless Diagnosis to define a lot. So Dr. Aardman has gone on a functional medicine journey when healthcare failed, his daughter, adopted daughter, she had cerebral palsy. So this would be very interesting. I know a couple people that have children with cerebral palsy, and none of them seem to have really much hope except just managing their kids and knowing that they're going to have to take care of them for their whole lives. So welcome. Dr. Aaron, thanks for coming.
- [01:09]
Dr. Aaron Hartman
It was great to be here. I'm excited to get into our conversation today.
- [01:13]
Richard Jacobs
Yeah. If you would tell me a bit about your background. You know, when, when did you know that your, your, your adopted daughter had problems? And, you know, we'll go from there.
- [01:20]
Dr. Aaron Hartman
Tell me a little bit about my background. I'm a medical doctor, traditionally trained. Four years of college, four years of medical school, three years of residency during the military. My wife is occupational therapist, was doing typical academic kind of stuff, assistant clinical professor at the local university, started a research company. But where, you know, my life kind of changed with my daughter was when we actually adopted her and brought her in my family. We actually knew about her condition before she brought in our family. My wife was actually one of her therapists that started taking care of her out after she got out of the hospital. Her birth mother did crystal meth throughout the entire pregnancy. She had a stroke before she was born. And when she was born, she was functionally Blanche. She didn't have any pigment in her eyes, so literally she couldn't see. And so pretty, pretty bad situation. And so my, when her foster home was closing up, my wife, who was her ot, asked me would be willing to bring her into our home. And I said yes. And so that's kind of where bringing her to her house and having a fight for her, seeing what the healthcare system offered her for care, that's kind of what got me off the path of my traditional practice of medicine and Got me into this whole world of integrative functional medicine because all the typical recommendations, surgery were surgeries, drugs, medications. I mean, to your point, you mentioned before with some of your friends, you know, my daughter's turning 20 now. She, she's had no surgeries in her life, period. A typical kid with her diagnosis by the time they're 20 has had 13 surgical procedures. So, like what? We did zero surgeries at 20, standard care of 13. She's had Anabox once since we got her. You know, typical kid with CP gets multiple pneumonias, multiple infections. And the other data point I like to throw out there is her birth mother did crystal meth. You know, these kids born these moms have horrible cavity dental issues. She's 20 and she's never had a cavity.
- [02:57]
Richard Jacobs
So.
- [02:57]
Dr. Aaron Hartman
So, you know, we've done something right.
- [02:59]
Richard Jacobs
Yeah, that's good. Like, when did you start at first? Did you try to use your traditional medical, you know, knowledge to help her? Or did you right off the bat say, you know, there's, there's nothing here. Like, how did you even think, let me go on a functional route, there's gotta be something else.
- [03:12]
Dr. Aaron Hartman
I didn't know what functional medicine was at that point in time. It was more desperation, nothing else to do. Um, we brought her home and she was failing to thrive. And so what you do for these really small, small kids is you feed them. And so had her follow up with the GI doctor. The GI doctor's well, she's not progressing, so let's cut a hole in her st, put a feeding tube in, swimming, pour formula in, which is just basically glorified sugar water. And we said no. And we got reported child protective services for that, for wanting to feed her real food. And that was like my first kind of like, aha moment with the healthcare system. Like, we just said no to like, I'm just going to feed her real food. And I'm getting reported because I didn't do what you said. It was just this weird kind of moment. Like, I'm a doctor at that point in time. I was become a major in the, in the air Force. It's like I'm like respected person in the community and you reported me for child abuse, basically. But six months later is when I really realized we had to take charge. Because my wife found a growth chart with kids with cerebral palsy. And that chart, she was in the middle, she was normal, she was 50th percentile. And the expert had no idea. The expert didn't know that this kid that they said no, you're less than fifth for normal, which is not normal. She has cerebral palsy, and she was normal on that growth chart. And so all of a sudden, I realized I had to figure it out. I have to be the person I learned about. So I just started studying autism, brain injury, drug exposure to kids. I didn't know what to call this. It was just I felt this weight on my back that I had to figure it out. And I came across. The first time I came across was this. This field called nutrigenomics, which is doing gene testing for these. These typos called SNPs, that are related to nutritional deficiencies can. That can be related with health, mental health issues, autism, a bunch of things. And did that testing on my daughter and found she had certain genetic predispositions and started giving her those nutrients that she needed extra ones of. And that introduced me to a pediatrician who worked with kids with autism, and he did actually gut testing. They actually would evaluate the bacteria in their gut, which we now know make 75% of all your neurotransmitters in your brain. So your gut health is a big part of brain health. So studied with him for about half a year. And that led me to the next step and the next step and next step. And so I have to have done that for 10 years. And. And going step to step to step opened my eyes to the whole field of, hey, there is a field of integrative functional medicine. There is a field of translational medicine. There are all these other fields of medicine out there that I never learned about. And I just went from one to another to another. And I've been doing that since 2007, so been doing that, you know, for, you know, what, 16, like, 19 years, almost 20 years now. And it's turned into two additional board certifications, multiple other certifications. But this is not a path I wanted to go down. It was a path that I have to go down, I was forced to go down. And it's changed how I care for my patients now. It's changed my family. We adopted all of our kids. So we used a lot of stuff with her, with our other kids and my wife's health and other family members. So it's been transformational for our family, but my practice of medicine as well. But your mic is muted on my side, so I'm not sure if you're talking or not.
- [05:51]
Richard Jacobs
Yep.
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Couldn't get unmuted. Sec. What are some of the things you've done so that your daughter has higher functional Ability than maybe other, other people with cp. What are some specifics?
- [05:59]
Dr. Aaron Hartman
Specifics? You know, we started with that whole, you know, doing the gene testing and giving her like gobs of supplements basically to address. Everybody's got, it's funny, everybody has these deficiencies, has these, these gene defects, these typos started there. But then I realized, hey, food is really important. So we started focusing, hyper focused on food as medicine. And then as we got down that pathway, I started doing the functional stuff. I started studying the connection with your mind and your body. And over in Eastern Europe and actually in Poland, they had developed a thing called suit therapy, which is using basically these, these rub, these bungee type suits they use in astronauts so that when they're in outer space, they would actually keep their muscle mass. Cause if you're a kid, you can't walk. How do you, how do you develop your brain, how do you develop your body if literally you can't walk? And the answer is you don't. So how do you mimic that? And. Which is like a zero gravity space. And so we started doing suit therapy with her. And that's when like making her body work. Her, her brain started kicking in more. She started, her vision started improving. Like, she started engaging more. We started doing like a lot of singing with her, vocal therapy, reading to her, getting her engaged vocally because she wasn't talking. I mean, she was like two and all she said was hi. That was kind of it. She wasn't really interactive. But getting her to start singing and like singing all songs actually started stimulating her vagal nerve. That let me down from that. That led me to Institute of Functional Medicine we started. Which led me to another thing which was functional neurology and using electrical stimulation to activate her muscles. So I went down that pathway and started using electrical stimulation devices which elite athletes use. You know, I remember seeing pictures of Bruce Lee using electrical stimulation with his training and stuff. And so it's an old technology, but it's not really used in the brain trauma world that much conventionally. And so I started using that and it was amazing to see how she, her tone got better. She developed muscle strength, she developed calf muscles that changed her posture. That led me to another field and looking at some research in Cologne, Germany, at the Princess Sophia Hospital there, they have this device called a Galileo, which is a vibrating foot plate. And use that as a way to stimulate traumatic brain trauma patients to learn to rewalk, recrawl, redo things. And so started doing that at home with her. So I mean, I could go on and on about different therapies, but it was like one step lead to another, led to another. And then I found out about Institute for Functional Medicine and A4M, which are two big organizations that train you, train for additional board certifications. And so that was like another four years of education. So it's been a bunch of, you know, walking. Door opens, you walk through it and you see a whole new world. And then you learn that and walk through another door, and it's a whole new world. And I've been doing that for a while, and it's done a lot of cool things, and I learned a lot of cool things to do with her and my patients.
- [08:19]
Richard Jacobs
I was. So I was going to ask you what, what are the hardest things about having cp? And then caretaking for someone with cp, you know, your daughter, and then what. What have you to improve? You know, what does that look like? Like, give me one example of something that traditionally, you know, parents and the person with CP have a terrible time with and how you don't have nearly as bad of a time and how that's like, improved everyone's lives.
- [08:40]
Dr. Aaron Hartman
Yeah. So, I mean, one of the big hurdles, obstacles with kids with CP is just the system itself doesn't give you much hope. It's like, this is it. You know, a typical kid with CP peaks out about six to seven years of age. Whatever they are at that age, it's kind of as good as it gets. Yeah, they grow bigger. But yeah, there's. There's. Yeah. And so they do surgeries, you know, for. They recommend, like Baclofen pump in her back to. To back open her spinal cord to help with tone. Because her leg, she had a lot of tone in her legs. The specialist recommend cutting part of her spinal cord to release muscles. Like, that's, that's the typical standard stuff for kids with cp. It's not a whole lot they can offer, you know. So how's her journey been different? You know? Well, one great example is the surgery and tone. A lot of kids, actually, they will develop tractors, they'll get pain issues because you're not walking, not putting weight on your legs. Your legs just kind of shrivel up and you get horrible back pain, hip pain. Then they do surgeries for the pain that help for a while until you get other surgeries. And so she's 20, has had no surgeries, has no pain. That alone, forget that. Her vision's doing great. She can walk now. She can text on the phone. I mean, she's 100% vocal. She interacts. She's actually. Our family calendar. It tells us, you know, when stuff is and whatnot. She can do all of her own ADL's. I mean, it's like, it's. Her life has been transformative, and I can't imagine, like, her. Her prognosis was supposed to be a kid hunched over in a wheelchair in a corner that slobbers on himself. And that's not her now at all, actually.
- [09:56]
Richard Jacobs
You know, this is a unique thing. I mean, you're. Are you able to converse with her and ask her what it's like to be her? I mean, you may. You may have unique window into the mind of people with. With CP that no one else has by t. By interviewing her and talking to her, which I'm sure you've done.
- [10:10]
Dr. Aaron Hartman
I mean, she. She's 100% vocal. Vocal. I mean, she. She goes to club through young life. She has lots of friends. She talks. She has friends she talks to on the phone. She does concerts with her grandparents. I mean, she's 100% verbal. That's great. That thing of my wife and I kind of. I mean, there's a point in time, maybe five or six years ago, I was like, oh, my gosh, would she just be quiet? Because, you know, she's like, hey, dad, do this, do that.
- [10:31]
Richard Jacobs
Let's go here.
- [10:32]
Dr. Aaron Hartman
And my wife was like, we paid a lot. We paid a lot. We pray. Worked a lot for this.
- [10:36]
Richard Jacobs
Like, yeah. Oh, my God, Be thankful. That's what she used to. Right?
- [10:39]
Dr. Aaron Hartman
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my daughter. My daughter, she. Well, you know, her perspective is, you know, she's. She'll laugh about. She's like, hey, I was supposed to be a vegetable. And then we're supposed to walk, talk, or crawl. Then she just laughs. She's like, oh, hell, that's so funny.
- [10:49]
Richard Jacobs
That.
- [10:49]
Dr. Aaron Hartman
That's. That's her response, you know, so she has just a great outlook on life. She's. Has an infectious laugh. People love her. It's sometimes just, you know, I'm in the weeds. I've been in the weeds with her for years. And so it's just. She attracts people. She's magnetic on. Yeah, it's. You know, I went to a business meeting. We had to take her with her because we lost. We didn't have baby Sting. So we brought her with us. And everybody there met her, loved her. They're like, oh, my gosh, your daughter's amazing. It's like. It's great. It's. Yeah. I don't. It's hard to Imagine what life would be like if we go on the standard, standard way.
- [11:18]
Richard Jacobs
Yeah, yeah. So what if someone's listening and they have a child with CP and the child's older, 10, 15, 20. Is it too late? What can they do? Even you know, they're not working with their child in the right way when they're very young, what can they do?
- [11:32]
Dr. Aaron Hartman
I mean it's, you have but something like Cyril cerebral palsy, you want to get the kid as young as possible. Like if we'd started what we did with her, if I knew, I knew now, we'd have done things totally differently. Which, you know, hindsight's always 20 20, but it's hard. The older someone gets, the less reserve they have. At the same time, your body has this unique capacity to self heal and self repair. There's always things that can be done. You know, for example, here's a great example. One of my patients who's in his 70s, who had a traumatic brain injury was unconscious for like more than a month in his 20s and he had horrible scoliosis, bent over, torporal back pain. And we started using electrical stim like I do with my daughter on him, physical therapy, working with a therapist. And over the period of six months he, his posture changed, he started walking upright, totally changed. You know, him and his wife were like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. And it was getting worse and worse and worse every year. And so there's all the things that can be done. It's just how much work are you going to put into it? And that's where it's hard because it's been hours. You know, she's, she does therapy three hours a day. You know, she's been doing that, you know, for ever since she's been, you know, since we've had her. I mean ever since she's like three or four. And so like it's hard but the
- [12:38]
Richard Jacobs
level, the level of work she's putting in is like an athlete or a professional almost.
- [12:42]
Dr. Aaron Hartman
If she was typical, she'd be in the Olympics right now. Like if she was a typical kid with her work ethic, she 100% would be an Olympic athlete. It's that kind of, that kind of commitment. You know, people talk about biohacking and longevity stuff in my clinic. What I do is I take people that are sick, I get their bodies to help heal and self repair and so but you have to treat it like what are you lacking for you and how can I give you what you need to self heal and self repair? Super Basic concepts, but the devil's in the details. And so that's what we have to look at. These kids with significant brain damage, which means it's going to mean the parents, it's not just dropping off of therapy, it's not just, you know, giving them. And you can't give them the sugary foods, the, the foods with seed oils and rancid fats. I mean that stuff is actually bad for brains. And so you have to change diet, lifestyle activity, you know, everything. Screen exposure. With these kids, it's, it's really, it's a, it's a big responsibility to take on. And if parents are wanting to do that, they can still see pretty amazing outcomes. It's just, you know, it's a lot to take on. A lot to do.
- [13:34]
Richard Jacobs
Yeah. So again, as the child gets old, there's less that can be done. But do you have any stories of parents where again, their child has cerebral palsy? They're maybe they're 15, 20, not even a child anymore, but they still make measurable gains. What would that look like in an older kid's situation?
- [13:52]
Dr. Aaron Hartman
I can only speak with the CP to my daughter. I have some kids with this condition called pandas or pans and autism. I have some autistic kids. I worked with pandas who had really bad. And I started seeing them at the 12 or 13, really bad self muling behavior, uncontrolled. And now on while I'm getting turned 20 and he's going to be, you know, he'll still need someone to kind of help him, but he's going to be functional, be able to get a job and go out in the world and stuff. So. And then on the other end with, I've had some Alzheimer's patients with really bad tonic decline who've actually gained some of their function back to the point that their spouse is like, hey, I got my, my husband back. So I've seen some pretty cool things in the neurological world of a patient with Parkinson's. Right now he's 10 years into his diagnosis. He's been stable for the last last three years. You know, 10 years in the Parkinson's, usually someone's like, that's about as much as you got. And they're doing great, doing the things they want. Yeah, he has a tremor and some other things, but overall doing well. So it's the thing about, with, you know, talking about cp, these principles can be applied to any neurological condition because at the root of all these neurological conditions is dysfunction with your mitochondria, which are the powerhouse of your cells and dysfunction with your cell membranes. And so if you think at that base of your level, you can use this thing called membrane medicine and mitochondrial medicine to actually help anybody with a neurological condition, it just depends on how bad that it. As far as what the outcome will look like. But there's hope with everybody getting some kind of response.
- [15:11]
Richard Jacobs
Yeah, that's great. Anything in your. In the incurable book that, you know, we haven't discussed that you think would be of great interest to readers?
- [15:18]
Dr. Aaron Hartman
I think the biggest thing is the idea of blind spots. You know, medical blind spots. Things are healthcare world, healthcare world, the experts think to be true that are just plain wrong, or they think to be wrong, they're true. You know, I talk about examples in the book, tons of examples. But, you know, for immediate example, you know, fat is back. As of like a month ago, Our government's now said fat's healthy again. We changed our food system, our pyramid around, you know, we've known fat is healthy for your brain for half, half a century. Why did we get it wrong? From 77 till literally 2016, hormones in women black boxed. You know, November 2025 took the black box off. You know, hormone replacement therapy in women lowers your risk for heart disease 50%, lowers your risk for dementia 35 to 38%. But yet it was verboten. It was forbidden until, you know, this past November. And so our healthcare system has all these blind spots in it, whether it was, we used to do frontal lobotomies for mental health issues. Think about that. We did brain. Yeah, that was common practice. That was not a big deal, you know, and so, you know, Doctors in the 50s, hey, smoke Lucky Strikes. You know, my doctor smokes Camels. Like, I would recommend you, you know, Richard, to smoke this brand of cigarettes because it's the healthiest brand for you. That with their commercials say, stating that, you know, and so our healthcare system has all these blind spots that are things that we think are right. They're just plain wrong. And I think that if you can just avoid these things in our healthcare system, and there's so many of them, you know, antibiotic usage, antibiotics won't hurt you. They're safe. Well, now we know antibiotics can cause childhood obesity, increase asthma and autoimmune issues in young kids, increase your risk for metabolic issues in adulthood. Like, antibiotics have concerns. And there's so many examples of things like that in your healthcare system. So, yeah, I think a big takeaway from the book is just to open people's eyes to this concept of medical blind spots and to start looking for them, because if you can avoid them, then that by itself will be, you know, can radically change your. Your future for your health.
- [16:58]
Richard Jacobs
Okay, well, very good. What's. What's the best way for someone to dip their toe in, you know, and get started with learning? And I mean, what's, what's possible beyond what they've experienced so far with their child, to go for the book first or, you know, what do you recommend?
- [17:10]
Dr. Aaron Hartman
I think the book would be the first way to go simply because I've just gotten so much positive feedback from my pat patients. I've had over 500 patients and people in our clinic read it, give me feedback, you know, and it just started to think about good things. And so I've heard over and over again. It's. It brings hope, it brings ideas. I feel like that's the first thing someone needs to hear is hope. If they've in their sit, they're in a hopeless situation. They've been told, there's nothing wrong with you. It's all in your head. You can't be helped. This is as good as it gets just to understand, wow. I don't have to accept that message. I think that's the power of the book. Where do you go from there? You know, I've created a whole website. I've got over 400 blogs on the website. I've got a YouTube channel with hundreds of videos. I've got a. A book reading list on my website. I've vetted over 500 books, and I've got about 70 on my recommended reading list. I've got podcasts. I've gotten so, so many different education materials out there for people once they want to pop in and find a vetted, reliable, dependable source of information and not, you know, all the. The experts, quote, unquote. I call them dancing monkeys on social media who claim expertise that haven't actually been practicing clinicians for a quarter of a century.
- [18:11]
Richard Jacobs
Right.
- [18:11]
Dr. Aaron Hartman
So I've got all this stuff out there for people to actually take charge of their own health and start getting educated and, and believe that there is hope and there are things they can do to change the trajectory of their health or their loved one's health.
- [18:21]
Richard Jacobs
Well, very good. And the book's available on Amazon and everywhere. Books are sold everywhere.
- [18:25]
Dr. Aaron Hartman
It's also on audible if you want to listen to it as well. You can do that, too.
- [18:28]
Richard Jacobs
Very good. Okay, well, thanks for coming, Dr. Arman. I really appreciate it, and it's wonderful you made such a big impact on your daughter's life. It's awesome.
- [18:34]
Dr. Aaron Hartman
All right, well, thanks a lot for inviting me, Richard.
- [18:36]
Richard Jacobs
If you like this podcast, please click
- [18:39]
Dr. Aaron Hartman
the link in the description to subscribe and review us on itunes.
- [18:44]
Richard Jacobs
Thank you for listening to the Good Question Podcast. Please email support at the Good Question Podcast if you have any referrals to great guests for us to interview. Visit thegoodquestionpodcast.com to hear more interviews. And please help us spread the word by rating and reviewing us on Apple podcasts, iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen to this podcast.