Hormone Health Hub: Expert Insights on Testing, Balance & Better Living — weight management

  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...

If you’re doing everything right — eating well, exercising, taking your vitamins — but still can’t shift the weight, a hormone imbalance may be working against you. Hormone Health Educator Candace Burch of ZRT Laboratory breaks down the 8 most common hormonal culprits behind unexplained weight gain, from estrogen dominance and high cortisol to low vitamin D, disrupted sleep and a lack of strength training.

Weight management is a topic that generates a lot of questions — and hormone imbalance is one of the most common but overlooked causes. Hormone Health Educator Candace Burch of ZRT Laboratory answers the 10 most frequently asked questions about hormones and weight gain, covering everything from postmenopausal belly fat and estrogen dominance to vitamin D deficiency, thyroid imbalance and why standard blood tests often miss the picture.

Obesity is not simply a matter of calories in versus calories out. Chronic stress triggers a cascade of hormonal changes — elevated cortisol, depleted DHEA, disrupted leptin signalling and imbalanced sex hormones — that actively drive visceral fat storage and metabolic dysfunction. This article explains the biochemistry of stress-related weight gain and why understanding your hormone levels is key to breaking the cycle.

The latest research confirms what Dr. John Lee and Dr. David Zava argued decades ago: maintaining healthy progesterone levels in proper balance with oestrogen is one of the most powerful tools women have for preventing and recovering from breast cancer. This article outlines seven practical steps to restore hormone balance and reduce breast cancer risk.