Aaron Hartman, MD argues that connective tissue dysfunction—specifically generalized hypermobility—is a common root contributor to many clinical problems. He links hypermobility (which he states affects ~20% of the population) to early/worsening arthritis, chronic musculoskeletal pain (including SI joint and sciatica), gastrointestinal dysfunction (IBS, IBD, SIBO, slowed transit/food intolerances), increased autoimmune disease prevalence (Hashimoto’s, RA, celiac), mast cell activation syndrome (part of a pentad with hypermobility, GI issues, dysautonomia, autoimmune problems), dysautonomia/POTS, and mood/anxiety disorders. He also claims a strong association between hypermobility and neurodivergence (speaker states a 400% higher likelihood) and describes the clinical observation of heightened sensitivity or “empath”/“spidey sense.” The speaker says Ehlers–Danlos syndrome (EDS) is rarer and will be discussed in a follow-up video to distinguish EDS from generalized hypermobility.
Questions this video answers
"20% of the population is hypermobile" (speaker claim).
"400% more likely" (speaker claim).
Chapters
If I could pick one thing that I would say is the root cause of many, if not most of the health issues I see in my clinic, what would that be? What would be the one ring that rules them all? If you're familiar with Lord of the Rings, what's the one thing that connects all these other things together with health issues? It's actually our connective tissues. So I want to do like a little around the world review of things that can be directly associated with malfunction, dysfunction, poorly formed connective tissues. What I'm referring to is hypermobility. Hypermobility spectrum disorder. Some people refer to as HEDs or hypermobile EDs. I'll eventually talk about EDs in this series, but we'll just focus on generalized hypermobility because it's what I see most in my clinic and it's what patients suffer with most. I do see EDS as well, but that's. It's more rare. I mean, I would say it's rare, it's less common, but if you think 20% of the population is hypermobile, that's the thing to focus on and look at. So what kind of illnesses or things could be associated with hypermobility? Really bad arthritis, particularly women who are suffering with advanced or progressive arthritis. Younger than suspected. Why is that? Because if your joints have a little bit of give, a little loosey goosey, they actually wear a little quicker and you'll have your major joints like your knees, your hands, your thumbs, ankles, big toe, actually age a little quicker because of the looseness of your joints. What else can be related to hypermobility? Chronic back pain, SI joint issues. I've actually seen individuals who get sciatica or like pinched nerves, pinched nerves in their neck, even arthritis in their neck because the joints are connective tissues are loose and they get more of a wear and tear, but also get more impingement. There's nerves as their connective tissues tighten up. So lots of musculoskeletal issues, pain issues. If you're dealing with anything, any of those, you need to think about your connective tissues, but take even a deeper dive. Gut problems, ibs, inflammatory bowel disease, food intolerances, food sensitivities. One thing that's interesting with hypermobility is it affects your ability to digest food. And so you can actually develop more food intolerances if you don't break the food down quite enough. But also just because your organs kind of are more saggy, so to speak, you can actually have your gut, your food sit longer in your GI tract. It Ferments, it can actually create a lot of bad bacteria relating to sibo, dysbiosis, IBS kind of symptoms. But even at a deeper level, the hypermobility is associated with more autoimmune illnesses. So your Hashimoto's patients, your rheumatoid arthritis patients, your celiac patients, if you have any of those issues, think hey, do I potentially have hypermobility? But even at a deeper level, there's a direct correlation with hypermobility and mast cell activation syndrome. And mast cell activation syndrome is one that like the Pentad super syndrome, it's this term we use that associates mast cell activation with hypermobility, gastrointestinal problems, dysautonomia and autoimmune problems. So if you have any one of those five, an autoimmune issue, a gut issue, a pots, dysautonomia, hypermobility or mast cell, then you need to look for the other ones. And mast cells specifically is your individuals who are super sensitive to stuff, they react with foods, they react with dyes, chemicals. Some people have multiple chemical sensitivity to get weird rashes. A whole host of interesting symptoms can have hypermobility as a root cause to it. How about anxiety disorders I talked about in the first video I did about this, how there's an association with increased activation of your nervous hypermobility. And individuals that are hypermobile are more prone to have a low level anxiety. A little bit of panic. Now I want to take a deviation from there to the world of neurodivergence. Strangely enough, if you're hypermobile and part of what I do is try to connect all these dots because if you step back and hear what I'm talking about, you're like how is this all connected? And the answer is it's all connected. Neurodivergence. So these are your severe, you know, you can be mild to moderate autism. Your people on the spectrum disorder, adhd, dyslexia also could include your Asperger's, which are your really super bright people who have crazy minds but little quirky, some social issues. But part of that as well is being an empath. And this is something I kind of discovered in my clinical practice where neurodivergence 400% more likely to have this if you're hypermobile. And what an empath is, is someone who's like has like a sixth sense. Or maybe they're. Some people use the word clairvoyant or they have a spidey sense. But the idea is that you have this. Your nervous System is so upregulated or attuned, you actually can feel energy in the room. So it's kind of like the individual people come in the room. You kind of feel like there's bad energy there. You might be hanging out with your spouse, you know, make a new friend and you're like, your spouse, like, oh, this is a great person's a great guy, blah, blah, blah, whatever, great gal. You walk away, you're like, there's something about that person. And then you learn a year or two later, hey, they were dishonest, they cheated on their spouse, they cheated on their taxes, they were just not a good person. Like, it's almost like it's actually a spidey sense that if you're particularly in women historically done a lot of the caretaking and nurturing in families, having that spice sense is a difference between your kids, surviving childhood, your family surviving and neurodivergent individuals, which includes this. You're 400% more likely to be neurodivergent if you're hypermobile. But there's also the whole dysautonomia thing, pots which I've mentioned before. The point is there's so many autoimmune issues, musculoskeletal issues, mood regulation issues, gut issues. All of a sudden, if you're hypermobile, you have to start connecting all the dots if you. And what I'll have to happen in my clinic is I'll see people with, you know, what appears to be, you know, three, four, five, six, seven unrelated things. You start going into the hood and you're like, wait a second, you hyper mobile. And then you have to think, do you have Ehlers Danlos or not? And so what I want to do the next next talk is talk about Ehlers Danlos, because that's a specific type of hypermobility that definitely needs multiple specialists involved, definitely can't be missed. And unfortunately, in our current healthcare system, they. When you talk about hypermobility, people, most people go to eds, which is not what most people have. And so because of that, this gets overlooked. These people get gaslit, they get ignored, and ultimately they don't get the care they need. So I'm going to talk about, you know, what this is and what's not the difference between EDS and just generalized hypermobility. And so we'll talk about that next. If you have any questions, put them below. If this information is helpful, let us know. If there's any topics you'd like us to talk about, let us know as well. Because we want to put stuff out there that's useful to individuals. Take care. We'll talk to you soon.
