Practice Takeaway: Providers should be aware that three different body fluids – saliva, blood or urine – can be used to assess adrenal gland function, and should know each method’s advantages and disadvantages, when deciding how to test patients. Inadequate or excessive production or disrupted circadian patterns of cortisol synthesis by the adrenal glands in response to stressors can eventually…

Tags: Dried Urine Testing, Saliva Testing, Blood Spot Testing, Stress, Adrenal and Cortisol


Read this article

Cortisol Testing in Saliva, Blood & Urine

Symptoms of hormonal imbalance can often be challenging to assess. Is your patient exhibiting signs of estrogen dominance because her estrogen is too high or is it due to the progesterone being too low? Is his fatigue because he’s not making enough testosterone or that his adrenal glands are working over-time? Are her imbalanced sex steroids the cause of her depression or is it the low thyroid…

Tags: Hormone Balance, Saliva Testing, Blood Spot Testing, BHRT


Read this article

How to Use a Symptom Checklist to Choose a Hormone Test

When ZRT Saliva test kits arrive at your practice or pharmacy, you probably aren’t wondering about the journey they took to get there. But what if you learned that along the way, their assembly created jobs for individuals with developmental disabilities? ZRT saliva test tubes are hand assembled by a team at Edwards Enterprises, an organization that provides meaningful, self-affirming employment to…

Tags: Saliva Testing, Laboratory Quality


Read this article

The Journey of a Saliva Test Tube

I love mysteries. But unlike the advances in forensic science that have caused a sea change in solving murders previously only fathomable by sleuths such as Hercule Poirot, the advances in laboratory testing methods have outpaced the ability of the medical community to unravel the controversial mysteries surrounding absorption of steroid hormones. How did the Mystery Start? This ultimately stems…

Tags: Hormone Balance, Saliva Testing, BHRT, Patient Education, Menopause


Read this article

The Strange Case of the Disappearing Hormone

An FDA-approved testosterone gel was shown to significantly increase risk for adverse cardiovascular, respiratory, and dermatological events in men 65 or older who had impaired mobility and increased health risks. This is according to a recent study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) that casts a shadow on the common use of testosterone therapy in older men for…

Tags: Saliva Testing, Blood Spot Testing, Testosterone, BHRT, Hormone Balance


Read this article

Testosterone: Elixir or Dangerous Drug?

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, and most of us know someone whom heart disease has affected in one way or another.In honor of heart health month (February) I interviewed Dr Aimee Gould Shunney medical advisor for Nordic Naturals and Naturopathic Physician. We talked about how fish oil supplementation can have a positive effect on the cardiovascular…

Tags: Saliva Testing, Heart Health, Cardiovascular Disease


Read this article

Fish Oil and Heart Health

Subscribe to Our Blog