In this episode of the Flex Diet Podcast, I sit down with Dr. Drew Gonzalez to explore strategies for optimizing performance and managing stress in high-demand professions like firefighting, military, and executive leadership. Dr. Gonzalez shares his latest research on how supplements like astaxanthin and creatine can benefit firefighters, the effects of time-restricted feeding, and how heat stress and VR training can be leveraged for better stress adaptation. We also explore his ongoing work at Texas A&M, where he leads cutting-edge research and collaborations to improve first-responder health and fitness.
In this episode of the Flex Diet Podcast, I sit down with Dr. Drew Gonzalez to explore strategies for optimizing performance and managing stress in high-demand professions like firefighting, military, and executive leadership. Dr. Gonzalez shares his latest research on how supplements like astaxanthin and creatine can benefit firefighters, the effects of time-restricted feeding, and how heat stress and VR training can be leveraged for better stress adaptation.
We also explore his ongoing work at Texas A&M, where he leads cutting-edge research and collaborations to improve first-responder health and fitness.
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Dr Mike T Nelson: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Flex Diet Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Mike T. Nelson, and on this podcast, we talk about all things to increase performance, add muscle, improve body composition, all without destroying your health within a flexible framework. Today in the podcast, we've got Dr. Drew Gonzalez, and we're talking all about a wide variety of topics, but primarily looking at High stress positions from firefighters to military to maybe even executives probably fall in this role, or if you feel like your stress is really high what are some things you can do?
So Dr. Gonzales has worked a lot in publishing research directly in this area. Also looking at some supplements such as astaxanthine that may benefit firefighters. And we had a wide ranging discussion of everything from heat stress and temperature changes to [00:01:00] VR simulation and training with stress adaptation, how caloric deficits affect this, meal timing if you have a high stress job or position, and a study on firefighter health and time restricted feeding, and just a whole lot more.
So it was great to talk to him. I've been able to chat with him several times at ISSN meetings, and I always learn some great stuff. And I especially feel that in those professions getting more research as to what's actually going on how can we best help health and performance with those professions is super, super helpful.
And related to that, if you want to expand your physiologic baseline by maybe you're adding in some sauna or cold water immersion like, like I do. Like, I was in Mexico and I came back, crawled into my 36 degree water, my converted freezer, and it was [00:02:00] horrible in all honesty but I'm glad I did it.
And there's a good reason, I think, to be doing those things. PH changes are another one, expanded breathing. All of that is included in the Physiologic Flexibility Certification. It opens again, coming up here very soon, or maybe open now, depending upon when you listen to this. It opens on March 17th, 2025, and it will be open for exactly one week.
So it opens up again on St. Patrick's Day, March 17th, 2025. Closes March 24th 2025 at midnight Pacific Standard Time. If you are interested in that, the best way to get all of the information is to go to the newsletter. I'll have a link down below where you can hop onto my newsletter completely free.
You'll get daily updates of useful information. If you like this podcast, you will enjoy the newsletter. Try to make them informative and also [00:03:00] entertaining at the same time. So, we've got the PhysFlexCert opening again March 17th, so we've got a ton of information on that going out to the newsletter.
And then also check out my friends over at Element. We'll have a link down below. And that is my favorite electrolyte supplement by far. I just drank one packet with a liter of fluid this morning once again. And they actually make drinking salty water with high amounts of electrolytes pretty darn tasty, which is pretty crazy.
And then speaking of tasty things, I also enjoy ketone esters from my friends over at Tekton. They make an ester that is quite good. They're in the process of some new stuff coming out very soon. Can't say too much about that publicly, but stay tuned for some new stuff coming out from them in spring, which will be awesome.
So go to the link down below. Full disclosure on that both of those are affiliate links, so I do make some money from them, and I am a scientific advisor to the guys and [00:04:00] gals over at Tekton. So use the code on the Tekton, Dr. Mike also will save you some money. So thank you so much for listening, appreciate it.
Without further ado, here is the podcast with Dr. Drew Gonzales.
Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Gonzales. How are you?
Dr Drew Gonzalez: Doing well. How about yourself?
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, doing good. Just trying to, it was a little warmer today. It was above zero. Yesterday it was 20 degrees Fahrenheit. And the day before, when I got up in the morning was 20 below Fahrenheit. That's pretty horrible.
Dr Drew Gonzalez: We're we got a crazy snowstorm down in the Houston area. I'm in college station, but. Oh, I heard that. Yeah. It's every time it does something like that, like it gets below freezing. It, everyone forgets how to drive. It's icy. It's a mess, but it's nice too, cause everything closes down and no one knows how to act once it's, below freezing.
So there's a nice couple of days off.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, same thing happened. I was supposed to record a podcast with [00:05:00] Dr. Mike Ormsby who will be on the show later And he had to reschedule this morning because it snowed in freaking, Florida He's like, yeah, all my kids are home now. I was like, whoa, it snowed in Florida.
That's crazy
Dr Drew Gonzalez: It was same too with us on Galveston beach. Like seeing some of the pictures, it's surreal to honestly, just these places that don't usually really, I can't remember the last time I've seen like any, anything like that in this region of Texas, that, I guess 2021, but Galveston that's interesting.
So
Dr Mike T Nelson: yeah, that's wild. Yeah. Yeah, one of the things I wanted to have you on is to talk about some of the cool research you've been doing lately. You've worked a lot with, firefighter departments and, different tactical teams. Like, how did you get into working with those different groups?
Dr Drew Gonzalez: Yeah I, during my master's, I was lucky enough to work with Dr. Matt McAllister at Texas state. He had just come from Mississippi state and one of his doc [00:06:00] students actually now an assistant prof out at, North Alabama, Hunter Waldman.
Dr Mike T Nelson: I know that's right. Yeah. Yeah. He's been on the podcast before.
Awesome, dude.
Dr Drew Gonzalez: Yeah. Him. And so him and Matt, they actually were, so Matt was my chair during my master's thesis and Hunter was one of my committee members, they both. Oh, cool. Yeah they really, they mentored me really well throughout these last couple of years and back then in the masters in particular.
And we did a study on time restricted feeding and fire, and that was really the, what ignited this passion to work with first responders. And now it's dipping into a military side a little bit here. And so, it was really just we did that study. This is back in 2019. And during the post testing, some of the folks would just come up to us and they would just say, it's really important that you guys are doing this, like just noticing us.
And I think that was what really sold me that the research I was going to be able to do in this space. would have a [00:07:00] impact on the community like that. And so I got to Texas A& M in 2020 during COVID, which was an interesting time, but we were actually one of the models at least for A& M to get research running during, the lows of COVID.
And we were able to keep things going. And some of the stuff we started doing initially was, a lot of clinical testing with local first responders. And really just ever since I got to A& M, I've hit the ground running with trying to build out a research line that's focused on.
First responder health and fitness and it's led us to a pretty big longitudinal study. We're now in our fifth year of data collection on it. And it's now, leading to big multi institutional collaborations. And like, honestly, six years ago, I wouldn't have thought that this was even possible.
So it's pretty interesting seeing it all come together, but. Yeah, just I think getting to make an impact in the community is what's kept me around and [00:08:00] we've got a lot of students at A& M that are getting involved in this type of work and they're now going on to either masters or PhD or even med school and a lot of the work that they get involved with on our tactical student work, it really I guess it drives them to continue, on into that next step, which is really cool seeing as well.
So I think there's just been a lot of, Great momentum behind what we've been able to do.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Awesome. What do you think is different about those populations that people on the outside may not realize?
Dr Drew Gonzalez: Annette zap one of our colleagues with eyes and she. She's always put it to me this way that, these folks, they really are general population.
These tactical personnel, they, we tend to say that, like, they're wearing these capes and they've got all this, added stress and they really do have all that added stress. But a lot of it's, take a firefighter, for example, a lot of the ones that we work with. They have two jobs, so they go, on shift, but then what they do off shift, they [00:09:00] experience a lot of similarities, I would say, in stress in their day to day, but then when they're on shift, all that stuff can really get augmented by the unpredictable.
So I think. When it comes down to it these tactical personnel, there's just a lot that it really doesn't allow for an in season off season kind of viewpoint, we call them tactical athletes, it's hard to gauge when they're going to experience the competition, so to speak.
So. I think that's the unique factor is the unpredictable nature of what they face, all the different types of stress that get added onto the general public, just general life stress. And I think that's something that's it's hard to, package all in together with what intervention you might set up and, whether that's exercise, nutrition or stress management.
I've noticed that's definitely something that sets these folks apart, and so having to consider all of those things in a one is really [00:10:00] important, and that's something that we're trying to better understand with the clinical assessments we do for our local first responder groups is just, where are these folks at with their health, their fitness, what other things are they facing with respect to this location, and Now we're starting to look at this.
Well, how do these things differ when you talk about big metropolitan areas versus college station, DFW versus us, it's probably that the Dallas folks are going to have maybe potentially greater call volume. It really just depends. But there's such an unpredictable nature that I think it gets really tough assessing and monitoring things with that considered.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, I think it's a good point that I think people forget a lot of fire departments are obviously are people who do it full time, but even then you've got different shifts. You've got, like you said, on shift, off shift, things are doing then. And people also forget a lot of them are volunteer firefighters too.
So they may be only on for a certain [00:11:00] time. They may have another completely different life outside of that too. So it's not just like, Oh, we just sit around all day and wait for a fire. Like there's a bunch of different things going on. And even if the second was the case. It's a weird thing to, I did Ski Patrol for quite a while, and it's not the same, but it's a odd thing just to sit around, and then at any moment, like, all hell breaks loose, literally.
That is the kind of, it looks relaxing, but you can't really relax because you know at any point, like you might be dealing with some shit.
Dr Drew Gonzalez: Yeah, no, for sure. It's just tough predicting those types of things. And yeah, they could be sitting for long periods. And that's even another factor that.
We have to start considering is, are they becoming more and more sedentary while they're, going through the course of their career and what's that doing versus, the ones that we see this, it's actually an interesting question to, to raise, but [00:12:00] even some of the folks that are a little bit more hardened maybe, or they go a little bit more ham on shift and train in their full gear.
Is that a problem too? Especially in the context of a firefighter, the gear is identified as a Carcinogenic. So, what are they exposing themselves to in that regard? There's just so many moving pieces to it. It's it's fascinating, but tough to solve.
Dr Mike T Nelson: And how does the circadian rhythm play into that too?
Because you've got shift work thrown on top of it, which is. I think isn't shift work in California, like a carcinogen now. It's just in the handful of people I've dealt with in that area. Yes, it was a stress. Yes, it was making sure they're ready. Yes, it was nutrition. But I think the thing that made everything just X amount more difficult was the, a lot of times you have a rotating shift or you're on night shift or you're not just working an eight to five, like everybody else on top of all the other things you have to do.
Dr Drew Gonzalez: Yeah, it's, I think that's a tough thing for these folks. When we did our time restricted feeding [00:13:00] study, one of the, theories behind that was, can we maybe ride the wave of their natural circadian rhythm and, fix things up from that nutritional standpoint, maybe target things like frequent snacking, stuff like that.
I think it's like you're acknowledging, it's just really tough because even in that context, some of the, just, on the side feedback, nothing from the study perspective, but just folks saying their two cents was, if they get a call late at night and they're in their fasted window, what the heck are they going to do?
Are they going to just. not eat because of, this regimen that's being purported to benefit them. And I think there's just a lot of things to consider like that, you're going to have disrupted sleep and a whole host of other things that you have to now take into consideration.
We have to figure out strategies that can meet them where they're at. That's definitely. Something that I think Annette's been a big proponent of is what are we doing? What's the so what now what? And how is it meeting these folks where they're at so they can, tidy up some things within reason?
And you're probably not going to solve all the problems, but maybe you can give them better strategies that they [00:14:00] can then use to make any kind of detrimental effect less impactful on their health and the overall.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. Tell us a little bit about the time restricted feeding study you did.
I think, correct me if I'm wrong, that was like the first type of study ever done in that population, correct?
Dr Drew Gonzalez: Yeah, that was my first. So, honestly the question was just one of, it's probably going to be a lot initially to ask for monitoring of, calories, macros, things like that, at least, you might be able to have a leg to stand on going into a station and saying, look, Just focus on when you're eating, not exactly all the things of what and then from there, hopefully we can clean that up.
But the idea would be, let's take away the frequent snacking, the constant feeding habits late at night. Now, again, within reason, If you have a call, it's probably not advisable to, stay fasted. You should focus on recovery and making sure that you're getting, a higher quality type of meal just [00:15:00] to cope with stress or whatnot.
But we just wanted to see if we had these folks eat within a condensed 10 hour window. Could that improve different markers of cardiometabolic health? We specialize in oxidative stress and inflammation blood marker and saliva markers. And so that's a big component of our research is understanding the interplay between, stress and oxidative stress, inflammation and cardiovascular disease.
And so we wanted to see if that intervention had been purported to serve as a benefit in that regard, reducing some of those markers. We just wanted to see if that would be beneficial. We have a little bit of preliminary data where certain markers advanced oxidative protein products and glycated end products, those were reduced after six weeks of time restricted feeding.
It's probably within that case that these folks were, dialing back on how much food they were getting. So eating less and maybe they had a little bit of a reduction in their weight. And we, you see a little bit of [00:16:00] reduction in some of these markers of oxidative stress. But we also looked at this from the angle of, is there any performance or occupational performance benefit to these folks on a diet like this?
Or is there any decrement is time assured feeding going to impact their ability to carry their own when they're conducting themselves on the fire field? And so we actually have them do a battery of fire suppressive activities. In this case, it was a no heat kind of condition. So it just did everything back to back.
Without the added heat stress, but we did see post time restricted feeding reductions in an inflammatory cytokine interleukin one beta, a proof of concept. But again, there are some of these dietary regimens that in this case, the time restricted feeding stuff is one of those that gets purported out in the mainstream, it's the end all be all potentially is what some people will say.
And we really just thought of this from a pragmatics sense of, hey, if you just condense your eating, your consumption within this time frame, maybe that helps you [00:17:00] mitigate some of the other, not great things that you're doing if you're frequent snacking. And so I think that it's interesting what we did find with that, some of these reductions and.
Oxidative stress and inflammation, especially around firefighting tasks. And, it's something that we I definitely want to build on this in, in, in the future. I think this is something that we want to do some follow ups on. We didn't have a a true control group, I will say, and that was the.
So the tough thing with doing some of this line of work is you really have to pivot. I found myself saying that a lot recently that, the reality is these folks have really busy schedules. You don't want to be disruptive whatsoever too with what you're trying to do. You try to make it as real world as you can.
We ended up having a lot of folks decide they wanted to go the time restricted feeding diet. And then had a few folks drop out of the control. So we ended up not having a solid control to reference, but that's something that future work could definitely build upon. We have some prelim data that would suggest this might, have a [00:18:00] time and place where it could be advantageous.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Do you think some of that was. I assume calories were a little bit lower in that group. Do you think it was a more of a timing effect or I know it's probably hard because you may not have the statistical power to answer all these questions and future studies will look at it but what do you think is going on in terms of if we were to guess at mechanisms?
Dr Drew Gonzalez: Yeah, no I really do think it's going to be attributed to the calories in calories out concept. I think that they were eating in a deficit. We did take dietary records given that it's just free living. Sometimes, those aren't the most accurate. But we do think that it was just a reduction in the calories, which I think is still important to note.
They can follow us. Better is better. Yeah, right. Gets you on the right path. Maybe that's not the thing you do for You know the long haul, but even in the acute, if it helps you get on the right track and maybe you start to then build upon it, I think that's that next step.
Maybe these folks become [00:19:00] more aware of. What their habits really are and then they can reshape it from there. So I think that's a good, way to frame some of it to just that real world sense.
Dr Mike T Nelson: What are your thoughts about, I, I worked with some emergency people, firefighters, even nurses, doctors, et cetera, that have pretty high stress jobs, but tend to work goofy hours.
So what I've tried to do is again, it's not always feasible, but. Whenever possible, especially if they're flipping from day to nights or evenings is set up their feeding schedule where, okay, so when you get up, you have your breakfast and then you eat four hours later. And then so their timing of meals and their meals are tend to be about the same, whether they're working a day shift or an evening shift or a night shift, because there's some data showing that.
Circadian rhythms, like food timing, may be related to that. A lot of that is, Sachin Panda's work, and a lot of it is kind of animal studies, which I get why it's done, [00:20:00] it's interesting, I just wonder how much that transfers to humans, but what are your thoughts about that, and Anecdotally it seems to help, but again, I have a, super small n number of people doing that and it's not controlled.
And all the n equals one stuff. . Yeah. Right.
Dr Drew Gonzalez: No. Honestly, I think really it, it boils down to what strategy is something that could be adhered to for, the long haul for these folks. And everyone's gonna be maybe slightly different, but probably, the whole food first.
But not food only approach, consideration to has got to be given for some dietary supplements, depending on what's going on. I guess not necessarily meal replacement bars, but strategies around healthier snacks. Like we've talked about this a colleague of mine out at bond university, Rob or, and I've talked about this concept of, I think we acknowledged it earlier, but.
A police officer sitting in a car for, a couple of long hours, maybe they could have a few, protein bars or things that are a little bit healthier snacking wise when they don't have access to, a home cooked meal that has a [00:21:00] little bit more kind of health backing to it versus, eating out fast food type stuff.
But to what you're saying to, having maybe meals that are timed out and maybe consideration too, for these being somewhat similar in the macronutrient calorie content I don't see that being a problem with these folks that have these high stress jobs. If it's something that they can adhere to, it allows them to get into maybe more of a routine as well when they're coming in shift and going off and all that.
And just something that I think ultimately allows them to adhere to good strategies. And we it was a really small survey study with actually Rob Orr's group at Bond University. And we were just surveying local first responders. I say local, it was folks in the South kind of central area, South central region here in the States.
And we got a little bit of feedback from this, from law enforcement, fire really these folks, it's just a matter of finding what strategies Best work [00:22:00] for them and educating on how they can little by little implement and stick to these types of strategies. And I think that's probably the common trend you start to see with, research like that, like serving just identifying.
Well, what are some of the barriers? Why are they? Why are those barriers up and how do you overcome some of that? So I think ultimately it boils down to you if they can adhere to something there probably is, all these different potential purported mechanisms for a health out outcome.
But if it's something they could adhere to and it helps 'em dial back on overeating, maybe helps 'em dial back on the frequent snacking, I think that's gonna have the best bang for your buck Really.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, I was reminded of my buddy, Stan Efferding's quote of the science is a compliance, right? Compliance is a science.
One of the ways that it's like anything else. If you're not doing something consistency, like you could have the world's best diet and everything's set up for you. But if you can't do it, then it's practically almost worthless. And yeah, and that's, I think always the trick of, Finding things that are better and trying to set it up [00:23:00] in a way that's actually manageable in that.
I know the mistake I made early on in my career was probably trying too hard to get things air quotes, perfect. And just assuming that they would do whatever I told them to do, which again, is that doesn't work that way. Yeah.
Dr Drew Gonzalez: No, that's fair. That's fair.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Talk to me a little bit about heat stress and I say even just temperature changes because there's a lot of, not only do you have the stress of not knowing what's going to go on, obviously you've got the stress of dealing with the emergency that's happening, but you've got equipment concerns, you've got extra weight, you've got potentially visibility, heat, you have all these other stressors that get.
In the case of especially firefighters compiled on top of what's going on.
Dr Drew Gonzalez: Well, yeah, and honestly, this is a research front that i'm hoping to build upon, you know in the next phase of my I guess early career would really be identifying I call it a domain of stress that would probably be the most [00:24:00] impactful or something that maybe we can prioritize strategies around.
So for the firefighter, like you said, they're wearing turnout gear that is encapsulating. It's like a personal sauna. It's not breathable. That compromises thermal regulation and then not to mention whether, they're going into a burning building with that kind of environmental heat stress in that context, or even some of the feedback we've gotten is, in Texas, it's like triple digits now every summer, and it's just Really awful out there.
If these folks are responding to, a car crash on the highway, that's something also to consider the environment in that sense. So, I think that's probably the I'm speculating when I say this because I don't think we have the data just yet. I know that there's a really good review paper that just came out of Dr Jacob motors lab out of Texas Tech on this.
But heat stress is probably Yeah. That, particular domain of stress for fire that, and that kind of makes sense, but it's probably that domain that [00:25:00] is the one we should really strategize around for that population. We have a little bit of a thought, at least, that on the law enforcement side, maybe it's a little bit more of this emotional, mental kind of stress.
There's Definitely other things that are going on in that realm. We've done a little bit on active shooter scenario training. And as you can imagine, that's, definitely there's some physiological, physical demands as they try to, have some kind of, approach into the building and things of that nature, but.
That could really weigh on, the mental emotional side, especially afterwards, too. So I just paint that picture because I do think, the heat stress is certainly something that's probably getting, it should get more attention as we continue to, grow this area of firefighter related research.
And it's definitely something that we're hoping to contribute to in the next couple of years.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Do you think like similar to some of the heat stress literature looking at athletes competing in hot environments and acclimation, [00:26:00] like the use of heat or sauna or simulation training, like what are your thoughts about how that is?
Or maybe they just get enough of it because of the simulation training they're doing already. We don't really need to push them in that direction anymore.
Dr Drew Gonzalez: I think you know it, I think it's tough to say. I don't know, honestly. I could see that maybe in one regard early on, there could be an advantage, advantageous, thing to, some kind of simulation or training that they're getting.
At the same time, some of the argument might be, well, do we wanna put them in that environment maybe as much. Sure. And then recently too I was. Given a little bit of a thought of, how these folks are adapting to the stress that they're exposed to maybe the adaptation is actually something they, they do need during their career and after they, are out of that career, that's where it starts to get even more problematic or so.
I think there's a lot of honestly, just questions we, we really have and need to answer within that [00:27:00] space. It's probably that there is a context where it could be leveraged and one where maybe you do want to back off a little bit.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, my brain goes to, you see this in high level sports. Like you may have athletes who play a lot, do different training than athletes who don't play a lot.
And then, the answer being, well, if you're playing a lot, do you have that additional stressor because you're active, if you never even played in the game, then you probably could train more because you don't have the stressor of the game, maybe it's something where. If you have a lot of calls, you have a high volume, then yeah, we probably don't want to just dump a whole bunch of extra stress on top of you if your system's struggling to get back to baseline.
But maybe the flip side is if you're newer or part of training, if we could take some time and maybe precondition you to heat. We would assume that based on that literature that when you're exposed to higher levels of heat, that stressor isn't as bad as what it was without that sort of [00:28:00] preconditioning time period then too.
Dr Drew Gonzalez: Yeah, I do think that might be something for consideration within, academies and just early on. I know. You've got a couple colleagues at it. It's now East Texas A& M University is previously Texas A& M Commerce and they run some academy training and that's even some of the thought that they've mentioned here and there in conversation that you know there may be a setting like you're saying where.
Yeah, this is warranted. And potentially others where it just isn't. And so I think it's again, just one of those things. It's that moving target. It's tough to maybe, pinpoint exactly. But there might be certain groups that maybe need that a little extra and some that don't.
It's definitely one of those things that I think it would be nice to shed some more light on it. For this specific population, like you're acknowledging within sport. I think the goal hopefully would be to replicate a lot of things or really show a lot of those recommendations in the tactical groups.
In particular these first responders, cause there's a lot of, just, I [00:29:00] think compared to the military, there's definitely a little bit more on the military side with certain things, certain strategies, especially, for example, nutrition on the first responder side, it's. It's pretty scarce and definitely a need to really boost that and get, info out to these folks.
They have evidence based approaches to, train and hopefully respond better to these, scenarios that maybe, for example, too, with the active shooter stuff, you know, that might be one of those scenarios where it's, well, you're not. Training in that maybe as much depending on resources and things of that nature.
We've looked at VR as a potential solution for I guess I'll just say it like this, streamlining the training at least. So you get, some work through of those scenarios, at least from, even, the mental standpoint and working through like how you're thinking through that.
And that might be, just an example of many of how these things could be leveraged.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, even with those, I always think of if you had something like VR had something that is a really good simulation, would that [00:30:00] be like your tasks where you could then divide people into, early on and get them better training?
So for example, if you find somebody's heart rate escalates up super high and then stays elevated the whole time and they make four decisions. You do a VO2 max test out. You find it's like 30, right? It's like horrible. Like maybe that person just needs more aerobic training because their heart rate's still an elevated is.
Making it hard for them to make, all these decisions compared to someone else who can, drop their heart rate faster or breathing components, or I don't know, there's different things like that. It seems like maybe that's a way to get a little bit more refinement in a very controlled situation where it's easier air quotes to, to test to have some.
I don't know if standard is the right word, but some way of figuring out, oh, okay, well, you're going to go do some aerobic training, say for eight weeks, and then you're going to come back. We'll do this again and see if you improve to figure out kind of methods there.
Dr Drew Gonzalez: No, absolutely. I do [00:31:00] think that there, there's also a big increase.
Like we've seen this like I said, our group's done a little bit of work in the VR space, but the VR tech that's coming out, that's specific to law enforcement or pretty crazy. It's wild. Yeah. Gosh, I think if there's a way to couple and get, some kind of, a standard on how you could train and have a pre post assessment and leverage that for just as simply as you're saying it, heart rate how much of a spike do you have in those conditions?
And some of our thought, at least with the work we've done is if we can reduce The spikes or the switch on of that fight or flight, at least through V. R. Maybe that would help these folks when they go out in response that there. I guess the way I think of it is that stress response doesn't become a problem for them.
They're allocating resources appropriately. You need that stress response to go in those. Tough scenarios, but we also don't want them to be, hyper stimulated to where they have a poor response [00:32:00] to it. Maybe it's just something they haven't, trained in enough, I guess you could say that response is cluttered with all the different kind of, complex mental, information.
They're just trying to, to. To sift through.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. Like a threat inoculation model. Like it may just solve itself with just training, maybe you just need specific training. And if you can do a VR environment, you could, change the difficulty. You start at level one where it's pretty easy and then you see where they fall off and then just like training, you back them off a little bit and train them, just on the edge of their capability and then maybe ramp it up again, just.
Same way you would do with intensity and volume, with a lifting program, it's similar idea. Obviously there's a lot more complexities involved, but
Dr Drew Gonzalez: yeah, for sure they have. Actually it's pretty interesting. If you look up flame, that's one of them for fire. They've got a VR gear that you can, you actually, you'll wear like a little bit of a suit and you throw on the actual bunker gear.
And so the suit that you wear underneath that it just warms up like hand warmer kind of [00:33:00] situation. But with the suit on now, you are still, it's not like the real thing obviously, but It does get a little toasty. And like we said earlier the bunker gear isn't breathable. So
Dr Mike T Nelson: I
Dr Drew Gonzalez: think that some of that simulation is hopefully catching up.
I'm sure you're aware of this too, but those hempatic suits that they've got for, some of the VR tech where, you know, these folks
Dr Mike T Nelson: haven't tried one, but I've heard the new ones are pretty wild.
Dr Drew Gonzalez: Yeah it's, it's really incredible what, what can be done with some of that.
So I, I do think that's going to be, I think really important in this tactical sense with training for sure. If you're able to get some kind of feedback that maybe, just helps you continue navigating those scenarios before you actually see the real ones for sure. So, yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: And I know you've done some work with taking a mitigation related to antioxidants. The antioxidant astaxanthin, correct?
Dr Drew Gonzalez: Yeah. Yeah. That was my dissertation work.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. Can you tell us about that? We've had Dr. Karen on the podcast here before we've had [00:34:00] Dr. Hunter Waldman here talking about it.
Dr Drew Gonzalez: Yeah.
Yeah. That's the same things. I first during my master's with Dr. McAllister at Texas state, we did a study on it for just kind of college age individuals cycling. We just wanted to see how it might impact some of their performance. And that was really the first time I'd been exposed and really heard of Astaxanthin.
And then early on in my PhD I just, I was trying to formulate some ideas around, well, what potential strategy could help mitigate the stress that these firefighters are exposed to. And Astaxanthin really does present itself as a, as an ideal candidate. There's definitely some really good research out that shows it can improve blood lipid panels.
So that's certainly relevant for a firefighter. We wanted to see in one regard with our study that we completed. Does it improve aspects of cardiometabolic health and lower CBD risk? Some of the other things too is, Hunter's group, they've shown reductions in at least subjective measures of soreness.
Now, [00:35:00] we didn't look at soreness in our study, but I do highlight that because I think there's this idea that it's maybe helping promote aspects of recovery or just these subjective markers related to soreness, recovery, perception of that. And if you can have better output and you feel like you're getting better output, even if objectively speaking, maybe you do have a little bit more indication of more soreness or muscle damage, et cetera.
That subjective piece is pretty dang important. And so, we really wanted to see this from the angle of reducing blood lipid panels, cardiac these markers of cardiometabolic health, like oxidative stress, inflammation, things like that. With our study, and so we, we assessed a we had a four week intervention where we gave the firefighters 12 milligrams of astaxanthin.
And they they did that for the first four weeks, they, well, I should say they either got placebo or astaxanthin for the first four weeks, had two week washout, and then repeated on the alternative treatment, so they got the opposite of what they got the first round, and [00:36:00] before and after that we basically did firefighting tasks, and We looked at their ability to conduct themselves on firegrounds from a performance perspective, but also pre post measures of stress with salivary cortisol inflammation, interleukin one beta, and a hybrid of physiological stress and oxidative stress with uric acid.
And then on the we had a clinical based day where they'd come into our lab and we looked at, their blood work and actually have them do a graded exercise test as well. One of the cool, yeah. And honestly, one of the cool findings of that study was four weeks we saw an improvement in ventilatory anaerobic threshold.
So, that was a neat. outcome there for these firefighters. And, maybe some of the thought there is honestly, they just became a little bit more regimented for those four weeks, taking a supplement and, being a little bit more cognizant of their activity levels and things like that.
And maybe that kind of helped kick that number up a bit. And so that's a neat finding for sure. We didn't see anything with the blood lipids. Speculate that maybe the [00:37:00] duration needs to be a little bit longer. Some of the work that's out is a little bit more, suggestive that you need at least eight to 12 weeks.
And so we actually are doing a follow up study that's going to be a 12 week study. And so we might have some promise there. But the saliva responses to the saliva stress, inflammation, oxidative stress responses to firefighting was pretty interesting is that the Acizanthin group these are placed in a clinical significance perspective.
These folks on the astaxanthin treatment, they had a blunted increase in these markers of inflammation. And so, a placebo folks, they would have like a pretty high spike. And then the astaxanthin, it would take some time for it to spike. Or it wouldn't spike as much. And so the thought I always have with stuff like that is Now, we've done some live fire training, evolution stress response research as well.
So usually you see folks, they have a spike in cortisol. It could be like, 90 percent spike, a hundred percent spike, something like that. Well, these folks [00:38:00] had on the acid xanthan treatment, a blunted spike. Well, if they get a subsequent call, maybe. They don't have as much, stress, just stacking and stacking, so to speak.
And maybe they come back down to a baseline level quicker is the idea. So that's something that we think would be interesting to continue assessing for these folks. But there seems to be some promise that. So, astaxanthin can attenuate some of that occupation specific stress response, or at least, keep it at a better level than it just continues to deviate away, if that makes sense.
So it was definitely a really exciting study and definitely the followup that we're doing, I think is going to shed a lot more light too on some of these outcomes.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. That's super interesting. And especially for, supplements, I think sometimes get a bad rap, but people forget that. In terms of implementation, adding a supplement is usually one of the easiest things you can do, like, yes, it's compliance.
And yes, people do forget to take their drugs and their supplements. But [00:39:00] I think sometimes you can get some easier wins with it. In addition to doing the other things, because I think people also forget that they assume that, Oh, you have them take a supplement, like. They assume you're not talking about diet or anything else.
It's like, no, you can do these things together. That's why they're called supplements. And if it's something they can take that is showing an improved response, obviously we haven't seen many negatives with that other than, potentially costs and the cost of S is Anthony has come down.
Dramatically over the last, 12, 15 years I think that's actually pretty cool and a very nice leverage point for sure.
Dr Drew Gonzalez: Yeah, no, absolutely. I think that's probably one of those dietary supplements that really shown quite a bit of promise. Creatine is another one that comes to mind and I know within the context of a tactical athlete, Dr.
Andrew Jagum's done a study where they gave creatine to some firefighters and saw some. Some ergogenic benefits specific to firefighting. We're actually gearing up to do a resistance [00:40:00] training and creatine study with a fire department in Texas. So that's going to be another
Dr Mike T Nelson: cool.
Dr Drew Gonzalez: Yeah we're we're going to do some exploration there as well.
And really, like I was saying earlier is just, we want to build this space out. to where you have a similar sense of sport nutrition, but it's particular for, these tactical groups. And so, yeah I, and like I said the follow up we're going to do with Assizant and I think this is a growing space and it's just, there's a lot of promise, I think with identifying strategies that are, maybe a little bit more pragmatic or simple to leverage in these populations or, Even to a little bit of what I said earlier is just maybe that kind of kickstarts some of their awareness to, well, I've got to, I've got to make a change with whatever I'm doing, nutrition wise, or even physical activity wise, because, this is going to be helpful in the long run.
So I think there's a lot of really interesting things that are, definitely in the works and it's exciting.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Any other supplements [00:41:00] you think might be beneficial? I guess my brain goes to maybe like fish oil or magnesium or something like that.
Dr Drew Gonzalez: Yeah. And definitely fish oil. I think, supplemental protein with these folks, there's a few, small observational type studies looking at, intakes and interestingly, they in fire, at least to my knowledge, they've compared it to military dietary reference intakes, which is maybe not the best comparison there just because of the potential differences and, I guess energy expenditure, et cetera, but firefighters might not be having enough protein in the diet.
So, supplemental protein could definitely be leveraged. Everyone's probably on caffeine. If you're a tactical athlete, I think, keep keeping that maybe in check more aware and hopefully it's not, a really bad habit. That's just something to be mindful of really just the individual responses there.
We have a few others that we highlighted in the 2022 position stance, but, essential amino acids, making sure you have a good array of that in your protein source. And so [00:42:00] that, that's something else. We actually just did a study on pork protein and plant protein. It was with our ROTC cadets at A& M and we have some data suggesting, I think it makes sense for most, but for protein superior there.
But a lot of that argument too, is just the complete array of essential amino acids and some of the creating content. So I think it just sheds more light, gives you like a leg to stand on right with some of these recommendations within the specific population. So. Hopefully to have a little bit more buy in.
And then I know too there's a, explosion of interest in adaptogens and nootropics. And so we actually, I've got a student, she just wrote a TSAC report on the topic. And so even some thought that maybe, ashwagandha could be leveraged to help manage stress within these populations.
Now we're hopefully going to gear up to do a study on that. Hopefully within the next year or two, but that's just some of the things that are, they're showing promise. And I think, there's probably a time and place for some of these things. And, some people might have [00:43:00] a good anecdotal story too, that, maybe it's worked for them not to over, over shine empirical evidence.
It's just, it's always interesting to hearing just what's worked for certain people and maybe some of those strategies, we can bring some light to it with some evidence based support.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, and the other one that might be interesting too, and obviously I'm biased because I do scientific advisement to Tecton, which does a ketone esters is a esters because you can put someone in a ketogenic state within, 20 minutes, you can get them to a pretty high state.
So you don't have. It's not like you're telling them to do a ketogenic diet or, different things like that. You can do it in the face of carbohydrates. And there's some data on that for better cognitive function under high levels of fatigue. Maybe, different things like, sleep deprivation, things like that.
So I think that would be another one that I think there might be some benefit there, but the research is still like super early in that area.
Dr Drew Gonzalez: Yeah. I know Hunter's done he's done
Dr Mike T Nelson: some work in that.
Dr Drew Gonzalez: [00:44:00] Yeah. Yeah, I know the one that he's done to specific to fire. I think that they didn't find any benefit from that one study, but, I think that kind of is one of those things where it's not to say that it's, not something that could work for that population.
Sure. still need to build out that space. So I think there's, like you're saying, there's definitely, interest with building that out and whatnot. So it's definitely an exciting area. And hopefully we can, at the very least bring some, good data to show like, Hey, creatine, caffeine these are, some heavy hitters that can benefit these folks and whatnot.
And what,
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, awesome. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate you sharing all your knowledge there. I'm sure for people listening, it's super helpful. And then if people want to find more information I think you have some stuff on social media. How do they find you?
Dr Drew Gonzalez: Yeah. So I guess I'm most active probably on Instagram.
So if they want to give a follow on Instagram, I can, I guess maybe we could link it in like the show notes. Sure.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Definitely. Instagram it is.
Dr Drew Gonzalez: I could look it up really quick. [00:45:00]
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
Dr Drew Gonzalez: I actually, I guess I don't really remember my own Instagram, which is that's all right. You probably don't get asked a whole lot for what your own is.
It's a, just drew an extra w and then Gonzalez with a Z at the end. So I know some folks spell with an S. But yeah that's probably the easiest way to also just. Ping me a message if ever any questions or interest in chatting. And we also have a Texas A& M student org that the tactical athlete research unit.
It's also on Instagram. You can definitely find it linked from my profile. So, give it a follow and you can also see some of the research that we're, going to be doing over the next year or so. So, definitely some exciting stuff coming. Cool.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Awesome. Well, thank you so much.
I really appreciate it. That's awesome. Yeah.
Dr Drew Gonzalez: Thanks for having me. This is, it's been great.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.
Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. Really appreciate it. Huge thanks to Dr. Drew Gonzalez for all the wonderful research he's doing and coming on to the podcast and sharing all of that with us, which is amazing. I'm stoked to see him again at [00:46:00] International Society of Sports Nutrition.
I will be at that conference again. It's in Florida later June. So if you're there, please come up and say hi. Would highly recommend it if you're interested in the podcast. Kind of the nutrition, exercise area, and especially sports supplementation. Great conference. They have a ton of great speakers lined up this year.
I'm not presenting this year, so I'm just hanging out chatting with everyone there. It'll be super fun. And if you want to learn more about how to expand your body's capacity to handle stressors that is the goal of the Physiologic Flexibility Certification. Once you're getting around to be in exercise, nutrition, and sleep.
In my biased opinion, this would be the level 2, the next area to look at. Everything from temp stressors, such as sauna, cold water immersion, changes in pH, such as super high intensity training, even lower intensity training can be useful, depending upon what area you're looking at there. Expanded fuels, we talk all about [00:47:00] ketones and lactate, how they have profound implications.
And then also a very deep dive in how your body regulates oxygen and CO2, and how you can train it to be better in those types of environments also. I believe when you do this, it increases your body's ability to recover, get back to baseline faster, and overall make your physiology more anti fragile.
Meaning you are applying a little bit of stressors in specific areas. And then your body is more resilient to that again. They can look up the fancy word, even possibly hormesis or even preconditioning. All those kind of concepts overlap. So, starts March 17th through March 24th, 2025. Best place to get all the information is via the Daily Insider newsletter.
I'll put a link here down below to that. It's free to hop on. If you have any questions, just hop on to the newsletter, hit reply. I will personally answer [00:48:00] you and do whatever I can to help you out. Again, big thanks to Dr. Drew for all the information here. Greatly appreciate all of his work. Make sure to check him out on Instagram and everywhere else.
Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. Really appreciate it. We've got a ton of great information coming up here. Guests in the future. We've got my good buddy Tex will be on here. We've got Dr. Guillermo Escalante coming up talking about the enhanced games and some other really cool stuff.
We got Dr. Mike Ormsby talking all about fat regulation and some great studies he's doing with microdialysis and much more, and many other guests. So stay tuned to the podcast if you could give us the old like, download, subscribe, all that wonderful stuff really helps us out to get the podcast into more ear holes.
Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. We'll talk to all of you next week.
That was a great number. I don't [00:49:00] care what you say. I thought it was dumb. Maybe you're right.
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