The ZRT Laboratory Blog

ZRT's senior research scientist Dr. Kate Placzek presented a webinar about the neurotransmitter testing ZRT began offering last year. Neurotransmitter testing is a natural progression of the wellness testing options that ZRT has developed and offered over the years, and in some ways encompasses many aspects of the testing in other areas such as steroid hormone and metabolite testing, adrenal and…

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As a hormone testing lab, ZRT understands the importance of a well-balanced endocrine system in maintaining overall health. Hormone balance is achieved through multiple feedback mechanisms, and when any part of the system is thrown out of whack by forces beyond its control, there is a knock-on effect on the rest of the body systems that are under endocrine control. Such forces can include extreme or…

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Practical Takeaway: A recent study found the risk of depression with contraceptive use decreased with increasing age, and was highest in the youngest age group studied, namely teenagers aged 15-19, than in the women aged 20-34. These findings are from a new Danish study suggesting that hormonal contraception might increase risk of depression, and that previous studies may not have highlighted…

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As the 2016 Olympic games play out in Rio, you might be feeling inspired to get moving yourself. While some sports admittedly look pretty dangerous, and we cringe at the sight of a cyclist skidding into the curb on a wet road and landing on her head, there are others that simply make us marvel at the agility and strength of the human body. For me, when I watch those swimmers cutting through the…

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I have to admit, I believe that "research" is one of those words that I think is often misused today. I started my own career in a cancer research lab, continued it in a pharmaceutical company research lab, and then got into medical information research and scientific writing, which meant using a range of medical literature databases and complex searching strategies. My early research career was…

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It would not be an exaggeration to say that this book covers everything you need to know about the stress response system and how it affects our health. Dr. Guilliams reminds us that only 80 years ago the concept of stress as a biological process, and how the stress response is regulated by the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, was yet to be elucidated. He takes us back to the pioneering…

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CLIA-certified testing laboratories such as ZRT are required to provide reference ranges as an aid to interpretation of test results. Ideally, reference ranges provide the expected range of values for a healthy population. When methodology and equipment is identical for testing a particular analyte among different laboratories, reference ranges for that analyte should be the same. However, when…

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Many women going through menopause start to see changes in their ability to remember things. Women can find this very worrying; such symptoms are not unlike early signs of dementia, or even Alzheimer’s Disease. However, age-related memory impairment is quite common and can be explained in part by hormonal changes, in particular loss of estrogen, and it involves a small part of the brain that…

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A balance of nutrients is required by our bodies to maintain good health, and selenium (Se) is an important one that often gets overlooked. This essential element is a required component of the selenoproteins, which include those that are needed to convert thyroid hormone from the inactive to the active form, and several important anti-oxidants. While optimal selenium levels are imperative for…

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As more health care practitioners have understood the need to assess thyroid function based on what is going on at the cellular level, there has been an increasing demand for testing of reverse T3 (rT3), a hormone sometimes referred to as the “hibernation hormone.” However, there is also much confusion about how it fits into the picture of thyroid function, and controversy regarding whether…

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