Baby got back — and better odds of longevity.
For Robin Berzin, MD, founder and CEO of Parsley Health, living longer is less important than living better.
And the functional medicine and chronic disease expert has developed a cheat code for the three health markers everyone, especially women, should prioritize if they want to feel good as they age.
Berzin says the three Bs — brains, bones and booty — are some of the most chronically overlooked factors in building healthy bodies that can withstand the strains of aging.
It sounds cute, but the three Bs are really just Berzin’s “shorthand” for cognitive health, skeletal health and muscle mass.
“I think about them together because those three systems do a remarkable job of predicting whether someone will stay sharp, strong and independent as they age,” she tells The Post.
As a panelist at the Flow Space Women’s Health Summit in Los Angeles last October, Berzin spoke a lot about the current messaging around longevity and how it’s so far been co-opted by “male-dominated” Silicon Valley.
“Everybody’s trying to compete to see who can live to 120,” she told the audience. “But I think for women, longevity is about how I look and feel right now, next year and for the next 10 years.”
It’s true that people are living longer now than ever before, she said, “but we’re living longer crippled by chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease and dementia. I don’t just want to live longer. I want to live healthier.”
The three Bs apply to men, too, Berzin assures, but she’s particularly vocal about women’s health because in women, midlife “creates a very specific inflection point.” During menopause, bone loss accelerates and women experience “measurable shifts” in lipids and body composition, she explains.
“Women are also more vulnerable to the downstream effects of estrogen loss,” and early menopause — before age 40 — has been linked to a 40% higher risk of coronary heart disease.
While there’s an “important prevention window” in your 40s and 50s, there’s never a bad time to start thinking about maximizing your three Bs. Here, Berzin breaks down the benefits of boosting them — and how to do it today.
Brain
“Brain health is closely tied to metabolic function,” she tells The Post. And with insulin resistance on the rise — affecting one in three US adults — it’s also “increasingly recognized as a driver of cognitive decline.”
Protecting your metabolic health will have positive implications for your brain. Berzin recommends focusing on three of the major players that can throw your metabolic health out of whack: Keep blood sugar steady, pay attention to insulin resistance early and get enough sleep.
That last one is especially important, she says.
“Sleep alone is a major lever. Each one-hour reduction in sleep duration below seven hours was associated with a 9% higher risk of type 2 diabetes, and the risk was lowest at seven to eight hours of sleep per night.”
Bones
As we age, “bone health is critical for survival,” Berzin says, noting that “hip fractures are associated with a 20-30% increase in mortality within one year.”
Her recommendations for optimal bone health include resistance training and, for women over 35, getting a baseline dual x-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) scan — a scan that measures the thickness and strength of the bones.
“Bone loss is modifiable, and DEXA scans not only measure bone density but also give insight into body composition — fat and muscle mass — which can be incredibly motivating and help drive meaningful behavior change,” she says.
DEXA scans are currently not recommended for anyone under 65, despite over 50% of women developing osteopenia or osteoporosis before they reach that age. Berzin herself is in her mid-40s and has osteopenia, or low bone density, in her hips.
Other ways of combatting bone loss include eating a diet rich in calcium and getting enough vitamin D (at least 600 international units a day for people aged 19-70, and 800 international units for anyone older).
Excessive tobacco use and alcohol consumption can also impact your bone density, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Booty
Though strong glutes do give longevity a boost, when Berzin says booty, she really means muscle in general. “Muscle is one of the strongest longevity levers we have because it supports metabolic health, balance, strength and resilience,” she says.
Low muscle mass is connected to earlier mortality, “and even small improvements in fitness” can reduce a person’s mortality risk.
The advice for protecting muscle mass is similar to her advice for bone health: “Build and preserve muscle. The combination of resistance training, adequate protein and regular movement is still one of the most powerful things we can do for metabolic health and longevity.”
Ultimately, she told attendees of the health summit in October, “exercise is nature’s longevity drug. Lifting heavy weights and doing cardio that stimulates the brain helps us stay strong inside and out.”
Combined, the three Bs can help “determine whether someone stays independent, mobile and cognitively sharp as they age,” Berzin says. And that’s a beautiful thing.
