Richmond Integrative and Functional Medicine

Richmond Integrative and Functional Medicine Aaron Hartman, MD
Restoring health & hope with science-backed solutions and innovative healthcare.

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You’ve heard about peptides. Maybe from a bodybuilder or anti-aging influencer. Maybe from someone who swears they’re mi...
06/03/2026

You’ve heard about peptides. Maybe from a bodybuilder or anti-aging influencer. Maybe from someone who swears they’re miraculous and someone else who says they’re dangerous.

Here’s the thing nobody in that conversation is telling you: your body has been making peptides continuously since before you were born. Your gut produces them after every meal. They’re in the food you eat. Your cells use them to coordinate repair.

So the real question isn’t whether peptides are safe. It’s whether you understand what they actually are.

https://RichmondFunctionalMedicine.com/what-are-peptides

Everyone’s talking about Ozempic. Almost nobody is talking about what it actually does in the body — or why a physician ...
05/27/2026

Everyone’s talking about Ozempic. Almost nobody is talking about what it actually does in the body — or why a physician who’s been prescribing it since 2006 uses it for patients who have nothing to do with weight loss.

Here’s what I’ve been watching in my most complex patients for nearly twenty years. And why the most visible effect of these medications might be the least important one.

Read the full article: https://richmondfunctionalmedicine.com/glp-1-benefits-beyond-weight-loss

I see patients every day with what appears to be 5, 6, 7 unrelated conditions. Fibromyalgia. POTS. Recurring gut issues....
05/20/2026

I see patients every day with what appears to be 5, 6, 7 unrelated conditions. Fibromyalgia. POTS. Recurring gut issues. Unexplained food reactions. A positive ANA and no one connecting the dots.

The connection I keep finding? Connective tissue.

I call the pattern the Pentad Supersyndrome — five conditions that travel together, share one root cause, and almost never get treated as a system.

If you have one, look for the others.

👇 https://RichmondFunctionalMedicine.com/pentad-supersyndrome

Most women entering perimenopause are told they have a hormone problem.What if that's not quite right?In a recent conver...
05/13/2026

Most women entering perimenopause are told they have a hormone problem.

What if that's not quite right?

In a recent conversation, Cynthia Thurlow reframed the whole thing. Perimenopause doesn't create physiological instability … it exposes instability that's been accumulating for years. The chronic stress. The overperformance. The sleep debt. The gut dysfunction. Estrogen was quietly buffering all of it. When the buffering runs out, the bill comes due.

And a lot of that bill shows up in the gut.

New article on the RIFM blog: on the estrobolome, leaky gut, and why gut health may be the missing piece in the perimenopause conversation most women aren't having.

Read here:https://richmondfunctionalmedicine.com/perimenopause-gut-health-litmus-test

I now call myself a medical feminist.That might sound like a political statement. It's actually a clinical one.About 80%...
05/06/2026

I now call myself a medical feminist.

That might sound like a political statement. It's actually a clinical one.

About 80% of the patients I see are women. Over the years, I started noticing a pattern in how they arrived: having already been through the system, already been tested, already been told their labs were normal and their symptoms were stress or anxiety or just part of getting older. They'd done what they were supposed to do and come away with nothing. Sometimes for decades.

In the third and final article in our Medical Blind Spots series, I'm naming six specific patterns that explain why this keeps happening (and why it isn't random).

https://RichmondFunctionalMedicine.com/becoming-a-medical-feminist

In 1996, I was trained to treat chronic fatigue syndrome as a psychiatric illness.That’s not a criticism of my professor...
04/29/2026

In 1996, I was trained to treat chronic fatigue syndrome as a psychiatric illness.

That’s not a criticism of my professors. That’s what the field believed.

Women came in exhausted, in pain, and unable to function … and we gave them antidepressants. Some of them got better. At the time, that felt like confirmation.

What it actually confirmed was that we didn’t understand the mechanism.

If you’ve ever been told your symptoms are stress, anxiety, or “just in your head” — this one is for you.

https://RichmondFunctionalMedicine.com/medical-gaslighting

There’s a moment I see all the time…Someone is told:“There’s nothing else we can do.”No more answers.No clear explanatio...
04/24/2026

There’s a moment I see all the time…

Someone is told:
“There’s nothing else we can do.”

No more answers.
No clear explanation.
Just… this is how it is now.

In this conversation with , we talk about that moment, and why it’s often misunderstood.

Because “incurable” doesn’t always mean nothing is wrong.
Sometimes it just means the system has reached the edge of what it knows how to look for.

I’ve lived this personally.

My daughter was given a prognosis that sounded final.
That was over 20 years ago.

Her story didn’t unfold the way we were told it would.

That experience changed how I practice medicine.

When answers run out, it’s not the end of the story.
It’s where better questions begin.

If you’ve ever been told “everything looks normal” but you don’t feel normal, this episode is for you.

🎧 Listen at the link in bio

Between 2002 – 2025, a black box warning on hormone replacement therapy kept tens of millions of women from accessing a ...
04/22/2026

Between 2002 – 2025, a black box warning on hormone replacement therapy kept tens of millions of women from accessing a treatment we now know can reduce heart disease risk by up to 50% and dementia risk by up to 38%. Estimates suggest 140,000 to 160,000 women may have died prematurely in that window.

That wasn't an accident. It was a pattern.

In this article I trace that pattern from the 1840s to Long COVID, and make the case that knowing this history is one of the most important things you can do for your health.

You have to be an advocate for yourself. That starts with being educated.

Read the full article at the link below. And if this resonates, share it with someone who needs to hear it.

https://RichmondFunctionalMedicine.com/medical-blindspots-how-often-is-medicine-wrong

You've been told to avoid the sun. Wear sunscreen before you step outside. Take a supplement and call it a day.But here'...
04/15/2026

You've been told to avoid the sun. Wear sunscreen before you step outside. Take a supplement and call it a day.

But here's what that advice has gotten us: roughly half the world's population is now vitamin D deficient. And emerging research suggests that not getting enough sun may be just as dangerous as getting too much.

I wrote a new guide breaking down exactly how much sun exposure you actually need for vitamin D, based on your skin type and the season. I also share the graded exposure approach I use with my own family to get the benefits without the burn.

Inside the article:

▪️ How much sun you need by skin type (with a chart you can reference all summer)
▪️ Why your sunscreen may be blocking more than sunburns
▪️ The "beyond vitamin D" benefits of sunlight most people don't know about
▪️ A 6-step action plan to get your levels where they should be

Read the full guide here: https://richmondfunctionalmedicine.com/how-much-sun-exposure-for-vitamin-d/

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Midlothian, VA
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Website

https://made-for-health.captivate.fm/listen

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