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By Dr. Tracy Tranchitella, ND Acute inflammation has a purpose and occurs when we are injured or sick and need to mobilize an efficient immune response to heal an injury or attack an infection. When all goes well, the response of the immune system is swift and complete. The job is done, the immune cells recede, and the clean-up crew disposes of the debris. Chronic inflammation, on the other hand, tends to linger without purpose or resolution. It may be the leftover remnant of an acute inflammatory process that never fully resolved, or it may exist as its own process...

Written By Dr Allison McAllister It’s an everyday occurrence when someone calls the doc line at the lab and wants to know how they can change the labs to improve their patients’ symptoms. However, it’s important to take a step back and look at what labs can tell us. While it’s true that abnormal lab findings can contribute to symptoms – high thyroid-stimulating hormone reflects hypothyroidism, high testosterone reflects polycystic ovary syndrome, and hyperandrogenism or low cortisol may contribute to fatigue. Yet, in many other conditions, labs reflect the medical condition happening in that patient’s body and not a cause...

Written by Dr Kate Placzek   Mental health is on all of our minds, now more than ever after the COVID pandemic! The acuteness of stress in everyday life, even before the start of the pandemic, brought out the necessity to reshape how we understand and approach mental health. The previously ingrained notion that mental health (or lack thereof) is solely a brain-only problem ought to be dispelled [1]. Don’t get me wrong, the brain is truly magnificent in its complexity, orchestrating the delicate interplay between the body and the mind. All the sensory information—anything the body senses, feels, hears, smells,...

Written by Theodore Zava   When COVID-19 began to threaten the United States early 2020, ZRT began to work on dried blood spot (DBS) COVID-19 antibody testing. Prior to the molecular (polymerase chain reaction or PCR) testing boom which started mid-2020 which eventually became the most dominate useful test for detecting COVID-19 cases which used nasal/oral samples to do so. Antibody testing took a backseat to molecular testing for most of 2020, however with the fortunate rapid decline in COVID case counts, the introduction of vaccines, antibody testing is making a comeback for research, public health surveillance, and clinical testing throughout 2021. ZRT’s IRB-Approved COVID-19 Study ZRT Laboratory received Institutional Review Board (IRB)...

Written by Tracy Tranchitella, ND In parts one & two of this series, we looked at the issues related to long COVID and the impact it has on the nervous and immune systems. The effects of COVID-19 on the nervous system can present as localized effects such as loss of smell and taste to chronic fatigue, headaches, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, and cognitive issues. This has potential to trigger an autoimmune reaction is a very real possibility with any infection and is stimulated by molecular mimicry, bystander activation, and viral persistence. The presence of a healthy and diverse gut and lung microbiome helps to...