Blog — #Neurotransmitters

  Tracy Tranchitella, ND, ZRT Laboratory If you have ever experienced a near-miss collision or other accident, you have likely felt the rush of adrenaline coursing through your veins almost instantly. In that moment, your heart rate, blood pressure, and respiratory rate increased, your pupils dilated, and your brain felt immediately more alert. These are the effects of adrenaline, otherwise known as epinephrine, which is produced in the adrenal medulla when we encounter a significant stressor.  In a “life or death” situation, the stress response can literally save our lives by readying us to act and facilitating a physiological response...

By Tracy Tranchitella, ND ZRT Laboratory SARS-CoV-2 has been circulating in the global population for over a year. According to Worldometer, at the time of this writing on March 2, 2021, 115 million people have been infected with the virus, 2.5 million have died, and 90 million have survived the infection to go on to have possible immunity. The immune response to the virus can range from asymptomatic to severe illness and death and has aroused fear and uncertainty around the world. For those who have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 and survived, some experience prolonged symptoms beyond recovery from the acute illness....

By Dr. Zane Hauck, ZRT Laboratory Growing up, I never thought of myself as a runner, or really a good athlete in general. I played every sport possible as a kid, but I was never great and didn’t play high school sports. As an adult, I started playing team sports again and eventually was convinced to run a 5k. I ended up running the Warrior Dash and enjoyed it, so I continued doing 3.2-mile training runs. For the rest of my 20s I continued running 5k races with friends and played volleyball, softball, and some casual intramural sports, but was...

By Theodore Zava, ZRT Laboratory  While growing your own fruits and vegetables is both challenging and rewarding. Many people plant gardens with the expectation that they can control what goes into their food. Gardening, especially in urban areas, has grown in popularity, but unfortunately, it comes with some risks. Contamination with elements present in the air, soil, or groundwater is a concern in both urban and rural gardens, and fruits and vegetables are good accumulators of heavy metals. This blog post details sources of heavy metal contamination and what you can do to help prevent soil contamination and heavy metal...

By Dr. Kate Placzek ZRT Laboratory Urine is rapidly becoming the preferred medium for neurotransmitter testing to ensure objective neurobiological assessment. This is because a) urine is the primary route of peripherally-produced neurotransmitter elimination; and b) it is non-invasive and cost-effective. This blog takes a look at how dried urine testing provides a superior advantage over standard liquid urine collection methods. Is a 24-hour collection necessary – or even desirable? The gold standard of neurotransmitter testing in urine involves an inconvenient and mildly embarrassing collection of liquid urine over a period of 24 hours into a jug. The awkwardness of...