About - Robin Berzin MD

About Me

I am a practicing physician and the founder and CEO of Parsley Health. As a doctor I combine the best of conventional primary care with a functional approach to health.

This means that I focus on getting to the root cause of disease rather than just treating the symptoms.

This also means I have a bigger tool kit than the average doctor. I prescribe specific nutrition, exercise, lifestyle, and stress management protocols, as well as professional-grade nutraceutical supplements in addition to medications. I also leverage the power of cutting edge testing to understand the body and more accurately identify the drivers of disease.

This approach means I’m able to help my patients help reverse chronic disease and reduce reliance on pharmaceutical drugs.

Ultimately I want to help you be the architect of your own health. I am just a guide on your journey to being well.

My Story

I went to medical school at Columbia University and trained in internal medicine at Mount Sinai hospital, but before I got to Columbia I knew I wanted to do something different.

After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania summa cum laude in 2003, I was lost. I didn’t know what I wanted to do and found myself like many young 20-somethings in a job in NYC I hated, feeling disconnected to purpose. It was through my at-the-time new yoga practice that I reconnected to my earlier interests in public health and systems biology. This newfound passion sent me on a course to medical school, along the way working in research at NYU and working with Dr. Mehmet Oz and Oprah as a producer for their first ever radio show on health.

So when I arrived at the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons I was already on a mission to make an impact.

Along the way I nurtured a growing interest in tech and communications and co-founded a technology company called Cureatr that connects doctors in hospitals through an app.

I also went on to add to my clinical training by studying at the Institute for Functional Medicine, an organization that trains physicians how to use their conventional training in the systems biology paradigm, and supplemented this training by working with some of the top physicians in functional health.

Along the way I became a certified yoga teacher and studied and taught meditation.

Today

I saw when I was training as a doctor that the way primary care today is practiced in most places is woefully inadequate for the needs of modern life. So I decided to build a new health care system that reflects the future we all need and deserve.

Parsley Health combines my clinical passion for health care that is outcomes-driven, smart and relevant to today’s world – a world in which 86% of our health care costs are driven by chronic, lifestyle-modifiable disease – with cutting edge technology and a beautiful brand that is aspirational and educational.

I’m lucky that I have been able to make my dream a reality, with clinics across the country, thousands of patients and a new clinical training program to help more top doctors adopt this way of practicing.

At home

I live in New York City with my husband, our son and our 2 rescue dogs. I love to travel, and I’m a bit of a tech nerd – I am really passionate about how digital technology can help make it easier for all of us to live a healthier life.

The Best Medicine Combines East and West

Combine east and west to create something that is greater than the sum of its parts. Conventional medicine offers powerful life saving treatments and sophisticated diagnostics that help people every day in ways that even a few years ago were unimaginable. Functional medicine offers a paradigm for managing and reversing chronic disease using nutrition, lifestyle change, and a systems-biology approach that is focused on the whole person and is a recipe for lasting wellness.

Social Threads are More Important Than Genetic Threads

Humans thrive on social connections, like love and companionship and partnership, and these social connections are powerful forces determining your health. For example, a person’s chance of becoming obese increases by 57% if a friend in their network becomes obese.

While today we know more than ever about how your individual genetics impact your health, the fact is that the people in your life are the greatest influence on your choices, and those choices are determining how your genetic information is playing out in real time. As a doctor, I can’t pick your friends, but I can help you be aware of how your relationships are possibly setting you up for being well or being sick.

Health Happens in the 99% of Life You Are Not at the Doctor’s Office

It’s funny that most people don’t really think about health until they get sick and they find themselves sitting in a doctor’s office. The reality is your health is determined by how you live your life every day. Which means that every choice you make, no matter how small, from what you eat to who you spend time with to how you handle stress, is an opportunity to feel well.

My job as a physician is to go beyond helping you manage your symptoms in the short run. I am also here to help you become aware of the infinite ways you are in the driver's seat, so that you can live your way to optimal health.

The Simplest Solution Is Your Fork

Nothing has a bigger impact on your health than what you eat every day. Fifty years ago the average American ate 20 pounds of sugar each year. Today it’s 130 pounds, and you can see the damage done in the skyrocketing numbers of people with obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.

The happy news is you may never have to face any of these diseases if you choose whole fresh foods that you cook yourself every day. But it’s easier said than done. There is a lot of bad food out there that is high calorie, low nutrient, biologically addictive, industrial junk. The first step is learning how to buy and cook good food. It’s simple and it could be the most transformative step you ever take.

Nature Is The Ultimate Pharmacy

Do not underestimate the power of nature. Not only do some of our most important medications, e.g. aspirin, come from plants, but nutrients like vitamins and minerals can also be used therapeutically to help alleviate symptoms and support your immune system. And now, most excitingly of all, new research has shown that the trillions of bacteria that live in your gut are critical to everything from absorbing food to fighting off infection – and even to setting your mood. Harnessing the power of nature to heal is as important to human health as the development of new drugs and surgeries.

Health Happens on Five Levels

The body is so much more complex than medicine makes it out to be, and that’s saying a lot because medicine makes it pretty complex. I have seen how the most lasting healing happens on a physical level when the mental, emotional, energetic and spiritual parts of a person are on board.

If this is sounding too woo-woo for you, consider that 95% of the serotonin if your body is in your digestive tract, aka your “second brain,” and that studies have shown how practices like meditation, yoga, and mindfulness improve outcomes in everything from breast cancer to surgery.

Functional Health is the Future of Medicine

The diseases most of us face today are chronic diseases, like high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, heart disease, hormonal disorders, and dementia. All of these diseases are heavily influenced by diet, lifestyle, environment, and genetics and they develop along a continuum, over time.

Unfortunately, conventional medicine doesn’t do a great job of addressing these kinds of chronic moving targets. Conventional medicine is great at diagnosis – meaning giving a name to a problem – and at treating the symptoms acutely. If you are really falling apart, the hospital is a great place to be. But chances are you were slowly getting sick for a long time before you needed a powerful drug or a major surgery, and that’s where functional health comes in.