Are you one of the “worried well”? Or a wellness warrior? Depends on who you ask.

My friend Chrissy Farr—healthcare journalist, investor, and author of Second Opinion—recently interviewed me about why we should retire the term “worried well.” I agreed at first, but the more I’ve thought about it, the more I think we should embrace it. 

If the system isn’t coming to save us (and it’s not), you’re either the worried well—or the worried sick.

I was reminded of this last week when I cried after a patient visit.

I’ve known this woman for years. She came to Parsley Health to get ahead of midlife shifts—weight gain, hormone changes, and a family history of high cholesterol. She's my favorite kind of patient: proactive, curious, and committed to the idea that more data means more power over her health.

Two years ago, a full-body MRI picked up early-stage lung cancer. Surgery went well, and her oncology team declared her cancer-free.

Most would stop there. She didn’t.

She kept digging, working with an oncology clinic in Mexico for cutting edge treatments and proactive tracking of cancer markers that aren’t part of standard U.S. care. When they rose, she pushed for a PET scan. It confirmed: the cancer had returned. She’s now Stage 4.

Next? She's flying to Europe for an experimental, genetically tailored cancer vaccine. Her doctors at Columbia praised her (and told her they’d risk losing their licenses if they tried the same treatment here).

Stories like hers underscore a brutal truth: For proactive and preventive care—especially in diseases without clear answers—you’re often on your own.

That’s why I’m so excited to share today’s guest “What to Know” from Chrissy as a reminder that being proactive about your health is a badge of honor.

First, the 5 things I recommend every woman 30+ consider this month to be a worried well warrior.

💪What to do: Drive your own preventive health journey. Starting now.

There’s no shame in being proactive about your health. Start here.

✅ Full body MRI.

My last MRI found a benign kidney tumor and a thyroid nodule. Here’s how I’m using that data to inform my care.

• Book a full-body screening every 1-2 years. 

• Prenuvo is the option I trust—and a new Parsley Health partner. 

✅ Preventative functional longevity labs. 

Standard labs test ~19 biomarkers; Parsley’s longevity labs look at 100+ including: 

• ApoB + Lp(a) for advanced cardiovascular risk

• Full thyroid and hormone mapping

• Fasting insulin and nutrient levels

• Autoimmune markers

✅ Cologuard or early colonoscopy. 

Colon cancer is rising fastest in adults under 50. Non-invasive stool DNA tests (like Cologuard) can flag early changes. 

• If you have family history, or risk factors (smoking, diet high in UPFs) screen earlier than 45. 

• Colonoscopy remains the gold standard. 

• Cologuard (costs $650) is a great out-of-pocket option. I did my first one at 42.

✅ Full body dexa scan. 

Key for women 30+: you lose up to 20% of bone mass in your 40s and 50s.

• Tracking body comp helps you protect muscle and bone—two of the strongest predictors of healthy aging.

✅ Genetic testing. 

One cheek swab = major insight. Two examples I recommend:

• APOE: Tied to Alzheimer’s risk; helps personalize prevention (exercise, sleep, hormones).

• MTHFR: Affects folate metabolism and detox pathways; can guide supplements and impact mental health.

🤓 What to know: The “worried well” is a badge of honor. 

💌 Here’s an excerpt of Chrissy’s recent newsletter on the shaming of the “worried well.” Subscribe to Second Opinion to read the full deep-dive.

Let’s banish the term “worried well”

If anyone should fall into the category of a “worried well” person, it is probably me. I don’t have any chronic conditions, I take zero medications, and I’ve maintained a normal body mass index (BMI) for as long as I can remember. For those not familiar, “worried well” has been used in our industry by journalists, doctors, and companies to refer to people who are healthy but extremely anxious. These people are also sometimes described as “quantified selfers,” because of the attention they pay to their healthcare information, whether it be from medical tests, scans, or wearables. 

I used to be ashamed to be a member of this so-called “worried well” community. But I’ve changed my tune on it. Some level of anxiety about health is actually a good thing. Where I’ve channeled that worry about the future state of my health into curiosity, and ultimately into action, I’ve improved my lifestyle and learned about diagnoses I didn’t even know I had. One recent example through this journey I’ve been on - I learned I have a condition called PCOS, and specifically the far less common “lean” kind, which is a hormonal disorder that impacts women. About 1 in 10 women have PCOS, and it’s just one of a long list of conditions that affect women that are also underdiagnosed.

Information is power. I’m by no means a techno-optimist who believes that more data will solve all the problems in healthcare. But I also don’t believe the system today is set-up to support patients who want to stay healthy for as long as possible. Patients fall through the cracks all the time, and yet those who choose to advocate for themselves are often labeled as difficult or annoying. As I’ve spoken with physician friends, a new reality has emerged that there’s in fact a significant swath of patients who are extremely sick and under-engaged; a tiny swath of highly vocal patients that are far too engaged; and a bunch in the murky middle. These individuals in the middle want answers and they would opt into prevention if they could, but they feel that their doctors don’t have time for them or they’re afraid of the expense.

To put a finer point on it, the patients are not the problem. The system is. And we should stop using language like “worried well” that demonizes the patient who is fighting an uphill battle largely on their own to stay healthy and ultimately bend the cost curve. When that happens, we all win.

“The conventional medical system is strapped for time, prevention isn’t reimbursed, and often doctors aren’t trained to answer your questions when it comes to being proactive about your health, my friend Dr. Robin Berzin, who’s also the CEO of a functional medicine company called Parsley Health, shared by phone. “As a result, you feel dismissed.

“Doctors will think about the immediate problem, we’re trained in the chief complaint,” added Robert Green, a physician scientist and medical geneticist. “In an outpatient ambulatory setting where literally - and my wife is a primary care - you’re under ridiculous pressure to see patients every 10 to 15 minutes, that is a pressure cooker. The incentives are poorly aligned.”

Dr. Berzin made the point that there’s very few people who are genuinely so healthy they can’t benefit from some amount of time and attention to discuss their health. There aren’t that many people who are so “well” that any amount of concern for their health is a bad thing, particularly when you consider that more than 70% of American adults are overweight or obese, and 60% live with at least one chronic disease.

“We have a sick population and yet the medical community is resistant to people who want to do something about their illness,” she said. 

Some regrets… and a rebrand 

I’ll admit that I have used the term “worried well” in the past while working as a journalist. I now regret it. But my perspective has changed as I’ve gotten older, and I’ve watched friends grapple with cancer diagnoses, chronic illnesses, long and traumatizing experiences related to infertility.

I’ve changed my tune to encourage the people in my life to get into their front seat when it comes to their own health. Life is too important and too short to not care about health, and invest in it accordingly.

But I am also a firm believer in the idea that having a trusted, trained medical professional in the loop should be part of the process. ChatGPT can be a super helpful tool, and that hour I spent with the physician asking questions was where I got most of the value from the Prenuvo experience. Unfortunately, that often means expensive concierge medicine that’s not affordable for most people, although there might be rare cases out there where it’s possible with a family GP (those doctors are often working in their personal time to cater to patients in a system that rewards them for maximizing panel sizes).

So I’m proposing we ditch the term “worried well” and instead refer to people who want to engage in prevention in a far more positive way? I don’t yet have a catchy marketing-friendly term,  but I love words like "vigilant" and “proactive.” I’m all ears if anyone out there has an alternative.

Again, the system we have doesn’t make any of this easy. It is actually hard to stay healthy in America because of the lack of healthy food and so many other factors. It takes steady practice and constant attention. Dr. Berzin gives the example a lot in her own writing of ACOG recommending that women get bone density scans at 65. It’s her medical opinion that these should begin earlier and she’s now recommending women get DEXA scans younger. Bone density peaks at 28, she noted, and women lose about 20% of their bone mass in menopause. So there is no reason to wait. Mammograms are another good example. Many of the women I know who have been diagnosed with breast cancer didn’t find anything on a mammogram. A lot of them have dense breasts, and had to advocate for themselves to their doctors. There are countless examples like this where being vigilant pays off. 

“Let’s stop resisting the idea that the average person shouldn’t be in control of their own health,” said Dr. Berzin. “It’s a net good thing: good for society, good for the individual, and it bends the cost curve if patients stay healthy and avoid serious disease.”

Subscribe and read Chrissy’s full take on the worried well at Second Opinion!

💛 The Momgevity Files

As you’ve probably heard, at a recent White House event, President Trump claimed that Tylenol use during pregnancy could cause autism—contradicting the FDA and oversimplifying a correlation researchers have been exploring for years.

As a mom of a neurodivergent child—ADHD moms, I am you; autism moms, I feel you—this one hit deeply.

I’ve spent two decades focused on how environmental factors—what researchers now call the exposome—impact our health. In 2012, the Mount Sinai Children’s Environmental Health Center was funded to study 12 common chemicals, including air pollution, mercury, and phthalates, that may be contributing to the rising rates of neurodivergence and neurological conditions in kids. Notably, Tylenol, PFAS, and microplastics weren’t on that list, but other substances like pesticides and flame retardants were.

Before my first pregnancy in 2017, I was proactive: IV chelation to remove heavy metals, eating organic, switching to non-toxic makeup and personal care products, and testing my genetics. I learned I carry two copies of an MTHFR gene variant that impacts mental health and detoxification, so I switched to methylated folate prenatals. The day I got my first positive pregnancy test, I stopped getting my nails done to avoid unnecessary toxin exposure. 

I also avoided Tylenol during all three pregnancies except when absolutely necessary, based on an imperfect—but published—study showing a link between Tylenol use and childhood asthma. I would have taken it if I truly needed it, but avoided it because I could. 

Said simply: I did everything I knew how to do. And I still have a neurodivergent child.

So this overly simplified idea that “Tylenol causes autism” is both harmful and dangerous.

Autism and neurodivergence are not caused by one medication, or we would have figured it out by now. In my view, these conditions are multifactorial, likely shaped by:

• Genetics (the DNA we inherit)

• Epigenetics (how genes change in response to stress, diet, and toxins)

• Interactions with our in-utero environment (aka the exposome)

The truth is: we don’t fully understand what causes neurodivergence. We’re searching for a needle in a haystack. Blaming a single drug or chemical won’t cut it.

And it's important to understand: high-quality research here is extremely difficult. We can’t ethically run randomized controlled trials on pregnant women. So the data we do have is observational and subject to things like recall bias and other confounding factors.

So, what do we do?

First: Give clear messaging.

Some studies suggest a correlation between prenatal Tylenol use and autism. Others do not. There is no conclusive data, no proposed mechanism of action, and no consistent dose-response relationship. So we cannot say “Tylenol causes autism.”

What am I telling my patients?

I tell them: While there’s no conclusive evidence, because some studies raise concern, I recommend using Tylenol in pregnancy only when absolutely necessary, and always in partnership with your OB. This isn’t a blanket rejection, it’s just a cautious, honest approach based on what we currently know.

Where do we go from here?

We can’t bury our heads in the sand when it comes to environmental toxins, chemicals, and both prescription and over-the-counter drugs that may be contributing to neurodivergent conditions.

What I was exposed to during pregnancy—or even during my own childhood, which may have affected my epigenetics—is not my fault. But I don’t want to pretend that these things aren’t potential issues. 

As a mother living in what often feels like a slow-motion crisis, I want us to dig deeper. I want us to question the chemicals we once assumed were safe—until we’re absolutely sure. I want us to do what Europe does: require companies to prove safety before products reach consumers, not after harm has occurred.

I want institutions like Mount Sinai to get 100x more funding—and the FDA and NIH too. We need to fund our scientific community fully—and use AI to accelerate clarity.

Because our children’s brains deserve more curiosity, more rigor, more funding, and more honesty than politics as usual.

Stay strong, stay curious, and breathe, 

Robin

P.S. See you back here next week for my next installment of ✨Measuring Longevity✨.

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.