Blog — Mental Health

By Dr. Allison Smith, ZRT Laboratory “Our sons were both diagnosed with ADHD by kindergarten. More than just dealing with the disciplinary and academic issues at school, my husband and I struggled to maintain a productive and nurturing household with the kids having regular meltdowns and outbursts. Our ability to connect with them became compromised. We were at our wits’ end considering medications and home school. We agonized over the long-term repercussions of both of those choices. We turned inward and analyzed our habits and routines. One thing we noticed with both the boys was that a strict routine in...

By Dr. Kate Placzek ZRT Laboratory As with any functional test that measures physiological function, the challenge lies in the interpretation of subclinical levels of measured parameters. However, it is within those subclinical levels that the neurotransmitter test becomes a powerful tool to identify what is contributing to a specific patient's health issues and how to map toward a successful outcome based on an individual treatment plan. Learning how to use a new test can be overwhelming, especially when it goes back to neurology which you might not have thought of since medical school. To assist health care providers in approaching neurotransmitter testing...

Why are Mitochondria Important?  Mitochondria are organelles that are present in every cell of the body except red blood cells. About 20% of our body weight is mitochondria.  The accepted theory is that mitochondria were once bacterial cells that created a commensal relationship with eukaryotic cells, and gave the eukaryotic cells the energy to become multicellular. The eukaryotes gave mitochondria more machinery and structure. Working together, multicellular organisms were able to evolve. What Are the Mental Health Manifestations of Mitochondrial Function? I became interested in mitochondria a few years back, for I had noticed that a certain percentage of patients...

An eye-opening discussion and review of mental health case histories with Alyssa Burns-Hill, PhD takes practitioners through the hormone looking glass for a deeper understanding of depression and mental illness.  From Burns-Hill's perspective, mental health is not just the preserve of mental health professionals, but a global health problem that all specialists – from family practitioners and psychiatrists, to neurologists and social workers – ought to be concerned about. She points to the 2010 Global Burden Disease Study that identified the most predominant mental health problems as depression and anxiety, which are symptoms physicians see in practice every day. Yet...