I have a new mantra: healthier than ever.
At age 43, I refuse to believe that my healthiest years are behind me, because I know they don’t have to be. My goal is to make my next 10 years even healthier and more vital than my last decade. Because as much as I’d like to think 60 years out, I know that making the next 10 years as healthy as possible is truly the best path to making it to a long healthy life.
To make this goal a reality, I need a plan that I can actually do as a busy mom of three, CEO, wife, daughter, and friend.
So, welcome to the next era of my newsletter!
I’ll be sharing my take on the latest research and health news (including what I’m doing with the information), the protocols that are working for my patients, and the daily practices and products I’m using for myself and for my family. My aim is to give you information that’s clear, to the point, evidence-based, and actionable.
I also want to start an important conversation about health with this amazing, growing community, and to hear what questions you have and which topics you want me to weigh in on. There is a lot of confusion in health and wellness these days. Let’s cut through the noise together and be healthier than ever.
RB
This week I got a lot of “THIS IS REALLY SCARY” messages from patients and friends after a recent study linked phthalates in plastic food containers to over 13% of all global heart disease deaths in 2018. It seems like each week brings a new microplastics headline; did you see the one about how the human brain contains 7 grams—roughly the weight of a takeout spoon—of microplastic particles?
Breathe. We are not turning into walking, talking Tupperware. But we can take steps to reduce our exposure.
It’s true that microplastics are bad for us. They contain hormone-disrupting chemicals including phthalates and BPA that have been shown to increase inflammation, disrupt the gut microbiome, impair immune function, and cause oxidative stress to cellular structures. Micro and nanoplastics have now even been found in arterial plaques in patients with heart disease; a NEJM study linked these “jagged-edged particles” to a 4.5 times higher risk of heart attack and stroke.
So, what can you do?
Can you eliminate microplastics from your life entirely?
Short answer: No. I saw an article about birds on a remote uninhabited island whose bodies are now 30% plastic thanks to their trash consumption. If that’s how it’s going on a remote island, there’s no escape in modern civilization.
So then can you remove the microplastics you’ve already absorbed? Also unfortunately, no—at least not fully.
But here’s what we can do: We can minimize further exposure and support the body’s natural detoxification processes.
Think of microplastic exposure like sun damage. You can’t go back and undo every sunburn—but you can wear sunscreen and protective clothing to prevent a future burn, and help the body do its job healing when you are exposed. In the case of microplastics, that means helping your body release some of the harmful chemicals plastics carry with them (like BPA).
Here’s what I’m doing to avoid exposure and release known toxins:
✅ Switch to glass containers.
Microwaving plastic releases up to 4.22 million microplastic particles and 2.11 billion nanoplastics—from just one square centimeter. It’s why I skip hot takeout in plastic containers. Who wants chemical soup with their noodles?
✅ Choose loose-leaf or non-plastic teabags
A single plastic tea bag releases 11.6 billion microplastics per cup. I love herbal tea, so I’m using loose-leaf and brands like Harney & Sons and Tea Pigs that have non-plastic, non-toxic bags.
✅ Cut back on shellfish.
Mussels, clams, oysters, shrimp, anchovies, and sardines are microplastic sponges. As much as this Baltimore girl loves shrimp and crab, I lean on salmon for my omega-3s instead. I order from Seatopia, which tests every one of their products to ensure zero detectable microplastics and less than 0.1 PPM of mercury.
✅ Choose rock salt over sea salt.
Sea salt comes from evaporated seawater (which now has a microplastic cocktail floating in it). Rock salt is plastic-free. Look for one without additives like Wild Pink Salt.
✅ Take a broccoli sprout supplement.
Sulforaphane, found in cruciferous vegetables—especially broccoli sprouts (which have 100x higher concentration than actual broccoli)—supports the NRF2 pathway, one of the body’s natural detoxification systems. Sulforaphane can’t flush out plastic particles, but research suggests it binds to microplastic chemicals (BPA, BPS, phthalates) making them water-soluble so that the body can excrete them. I take Thorne’s Broccoli Seed Extract (50mg Sulforaphane Glucosinolate) to help my liver do this important job.
✅ Get 30-50 g of fiber per day.
Beyond broccoli, dietary fiber may help remove PFOS and PFOA—two of the most common “forever chemicals” found in microplastics—from your gut. If I get 30g of dietary fiber that’s a good day—50g is a great day.
What I’m Reading This Week
#1 The FDA just approved the first Alzheimer’s blood test
Nearly $50 billion dollars in pharma research later, and we still haven’t found a cure for Alzheimer’s. Meanwhile, we have been systematically ignoring the fact that we can get ahead of this disease, which starts developing 20 years before symptoms emerge.
Being proactive with diagnostic testing is one of the ways we shift the trajectory of our health. I’m a huge proponent of testing early and often. By testing more broadly, from MRIs to bloodwork, we learn more about who really needs intervention, and we become more proactive about our health as a society.
The new Alzheimer’s test approved by the FDA this month is a win for preventative health. The blood test detects amyloid plaques in the brain with over 90% accuracy, significantly improving upon the current 60% diagnostic accuracy rate.
A test like this would be useless and scary however if there was nothing you could do about your Alzheimer’s risk. But that is not the case. Alzheimer’s is significantly associated with poor cardiovascular and metabolic health. (It’s sometimes called “Type 3 Diabetes.”) That means a meaningful percentage of Alzheimer’s cases are preventable or reversible.
In my practice, we use protocols similar to Dr. Dale Bredesen’s paradigm-shifting ReCODE, which focus on optimizing heart health (cholesterol) and metabolic health (blood glucose) markers to lower the risk of cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s.
Given 13 million people are projected to be living with Alzheimer’s by 2050, here are the people I’m telling to get this new blood test:
- Anyone over 55
- Anyone over 30 with two copies of the APOE4 variant or one copy of the APOE4 and one copy of the APOE3 allele (By the way, before you delete your 23 and Me account, save a copy of the raw data. You can bring it to us at Parsley and we can help you analyze your genetic risks.)
- Anyone over 30 with diabetes, metabolic syndrome, elevated cholesterol, or a high waist-to-hip ratio (0.9 or higher for men and 0.85 or higher for women)
- Anyone over 30 with a family history of Alzheimer’s
- Anyone over 55 experiencing symptoms of cognitive decline
#2 Drinking raw milk is 840 times more likely to make you sick compared to pasteurized milk.
I actually appreciate why proponents of raw milk (including some of my friends) are so passionate about it.
Animal milk is a living food (like breast milk)—probiotics, enzymes, immunoglobulins, proteins and fats give it much of its health benefits. The pasteurization process denatures these fats, enzymes, and immune products, and eliminates healthy bacteria, reducing a large part of milk’s nutritional value. Industrial farming practices also expose dairy products to pesticides and antibiotics.
The truth is, if you’re a healthy adult, the absolute risk of getting sick from drinking raw milk is pretty low. But since there are other ways to get the nutritional benefits of raw milk that don’t also come with the risk of severe illness (especially for kids, pregnant women, and those who are immunocompromised), I don’t recommend drinking it.
Here’s what I do recommend:
🥛 Make or buy nutritionally dense nut milk. Making nut milk is actually really easy. Blend nuts, water and a date (optional) in your Vitamix and strain it. If it were more complicated than that, I promise you I wouldn’t do it. When I buy milk, I buy unsweetened, organic, carrageenan-free almond or macadamia milk.
🦠 Focus on fermented dairy. Organic yogurt and kefir provide probiotics and bioactive peptides that support gut health and immune function. These offer some of raw milk’s key benefits—and they’re pasteurized first, so they’re safe.
🐮 Supplementing with bovine colostrum may benefit gut health. I sometimes prescribe it for people with intestinal permeability (aka leaky gut).
#3 Is bioelectric-medicine the next frontier in longevity?
I’ll never forget when I first trained in functional medicine and learned about something called the Tennant BioModulator, which uses low-level pulsed electrical currents to stimulate cells as a therapy for pain, improved cellular function, and tissue repair – I was fascinated. I had learned in my medical training that the human body is one big electro-chemical gradient. Every second, charged ions are flowing back and forth across your 37 trillion cells sending electrical impulses throughout the body.
We use this all the time when it comes to heart health and cardiology (e.g. pacemakers); but I always found it strange that we don’t use this fact more broadly in therapeutics. So this week I was excited to see the WSJ article on two new devices that harness the body’s electrochemical gradients.
SetPoint Medical is developing an implantable device that stimulates the vagus nerve to regulate inflammation in rheumatoid arthritis patients. In clinical trials, 50% of patients experienced symptom relief after six months. The company is seeking FDA approval and plans to test the device for conditions like Crohn’s disease and multiple sclerosis. Another device from Novocure employs low-intensity, alternating electric fields to interfere with cancer cell division; it’s already approved to treat glioblastoma and mesothelioma, with ongoing trials exploring pancreatic and lung cancers.
I think that non-pharmaceutical therapeutics for chronic disease are truly the next frontier and that harnessing the energy currents of our bodies to heal makes so much sense. I’m excited to see this field evolve.
For now, maybe it’s time to stop making fun of our friends with their amethyst ion mats after all! If someone wants to send me one, at this point I wouldn’t say no 🙂 And if you don’t have an ion mat, a reminder that practices like deep breathing, meditation, cold exposure and even humming can activate your vagus nerve.
How to be healthier than ever this week
🔥 Love as medicine: Recently I had a very fun talk with my friend Dr. Erika Siegel on the role of love and relationships in building a comprehensive longevity protocol. Don’t miss the key takeaways I shared on Instagram.
🍳 Replace your nonstick: I’ve been loving my Caraway pans. Non-toxic (free of forever chemicals and microplastics), nonstick, and they actually look good on the stove. Use my discount code: ROBIN10 for 10% off.
🫒 Drink your EVOO: A study of 90,000+ people found that consuming 1 tablespoon of olive oil daily cuts dementia-related death risk by 28%. Wild. I down a spoonful of the good stuff every morning with my supplements.
As always, this newsletter is for informational and educational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. Always consult your healthcare provider before making any health decisions or changes to your treatment plan.
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