The ZRT Laboratory Blog

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…

Tags: Heavy Metals, Essential Elements, Elements Testing, Lead, Cadmium, Arsenic, Thallium, Mercury, Zinc, Copper

Read this article

Influenced by our environment, we are constantly being exposed to elements, whether nutritional or toxic. They are a big contribution to the yin yang dualism of health and disease. With heavy metals, contamination is so extensive nowadays that it is no longer a question of whether exposure took place, but rather what the level of exposure was or continues to be. Toxicity from low levels of exposure…

Tags: Neurotransmitters, Mental Health, Heavy Metals, Elements Testing, Toxins, Arsenic, Mercury, Cadmium

Read this article

A couple years back, I wrote a blog about iodine deficiency in athletes resulting from excessive sweat loss. Later, while studying the kinetics of the iodine loading test which involves taking a 50-mg dose of iodine and collecting urine for 24 hours, I investigated the excretion of iodine in sweat along with urine. Surprisingly iodine levels in sweat tracked urine iodine excretion over a period of…

Tags: Dried Urine Testing, Heavy Metals, Lead, Cadmium, Arsenic, Mercury

Read this article

Is there anything more endearing than the photographs of your baby eating his or her first foods? Their faces squish-up, they are covered from head to toe, their tongues protrude to catch every bite or more often to try to get the revolting taste out of their mouths. Now, we parents are the ones squishing up our faces and showing huge grimaces of disgust at the latest report that our baby food is…

Tags: Toxins, Heavy Metals, Lead, Arsenic, Cadmium

Read this article

A recent news story reports that the Clean Label Project, a non-profit organization focused on health and transparency in consumer product labeling, tested 530 baby food products for toxic elements and chemicals. The results were not good. Sixty-five percent of products tested "positive" for arsenic, 36% for lead, 58% for cadmium, and the tests even showed high levels of BPA in “BPA Free”…

Tags: Toxins, Dried Urine Testing, Heavy Metals, Lead, Cadmium, Arsenic, Mercury

Read this article

A recent study from researchers at the Mayo Clinic in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed that people following a gluten-free diet have significantly higher arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury levels in urine and blood than those not following a gluten-free diet. Another similar study in 2006 revealed that vegans and vegetarians have an increased…

Tags: Toxins, Dried Urine Testing, Heavy Metals, Lead, Cadmium, Arsenic, Mercury

Read this article

Getting an early jump on a disease process like cancer makes treatment exponentially easier and outcomes generally better. Under the current guidelines, that early jump on prostate cancer starts at age 55 for men at low to moderate risk and 40-45 for men at high risk. It takes years for cancer to grow to a detectable point after the tumor's initial induction from a normal cell to a cancerous one.…

Tags: Estrogen Metabolism, BPA, Cancer, Arsenic, Andropause

Read this article

Studies have found toxic heavy metals, including lead, cadmium, arsenic, aluminum, mercury and other toxins deemed hazardous by the CDC in a random sampling of lip products used by women of all ages. For millions of women the world over, this casts a pall on the transformative promise of cosmetics to make us look and feel more beautiful.…

Tags: Patient Education, Heavy Metals, Toxins, Lead, Cadmium, Arsenic, Mercury

Read this article

Urine, serum, plasma, whole blood, red blood cells, feces, hair, fingernails…the list goes on. How do you decide what biological sample(s) to use for element analysis? Can results be compared to scientific literature or do they have clinical significance? Is it possible for values to be elevated or low in one sample type and normal in another? Do test results indicate recent intake, body burden,…

Tags: Elements Testing, Heavy Metals, Dried Urine Testing, Blood Spot Testing, Iodine, Selenium, Bromine, Arsenic, Cadmium, Lead, Mercury, Magnesium

Read this article

Many residents were surprised to learn that high levels of arsenic and cadmium are being detected at an air monitoring station in Southeast Portland, Oregon according to the state Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). Watch the News: Dr. Zava comments on toxin exposure in SE PortlandThe state began monitoring air quality after moss samples taken from the area last October were found to be…

Tags: Cancer, Toxins, Heavy Metals, Arsenic, Cadmium

Read this article