Captain America: Can We Create a Super Soldier? | S01E06 - Reality Check: The Science of Fiction

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
All right, everybody, welcome backto the podcast where we discuss the plausibility
of sci fi concepts with experts.I'm your host, Heidi Koppo, and
today we're exploring the science behind superSoldier CRMs in Captain America Fall Thanks,
Preparing for Hybrid rives, Activate Factivatessixty. Present er Seed Lazyl like sweet

(00:22):
like sweets too slow, All right, reality too, His signs called food
Show You. Joining us is doctorEscalante and doctor Escalante is currently an assistant
dean and Professor of Kinesiology at CaliforniaState San Bernardino. Did I say that
right? That's right? Oh,I'm so good. And he is also

(00:45):
the Vice president of the International Societyof Sports Nutrition, Chair of the NSCA
Bodybuilding and Fitness Special Interest Group,Scientific advisor for the National Academy of Sports
Medicine, and a competitive bodybuilder.Forget this, over twenty years. That's
amazing because most bodybuilders they do oneshow and then they're they're out because that's
a lot. It's a lot togo through. So twenty years resume is

(01:07):
a competitive bodybuilder is amazing. Sostay with us to the end where doctor
Sclante is going to be tackling ourburning question, which is even remotely possible
to enhance our soldiers like they doto Steve Rogers in Captain America. Now,
before we jump into this, Ido want to highlight how special it

(01:27):
is that doctor Esclante agreed to tacklethis topic with us because he has over
one hundred peer reviewed manuscripts, abstractsor magazine web publications. That's insane.
He speaks at conferences throughout the nationand the world about physique enhancement, muscular
hypertrophy, body composition, performance enhancingdrugs aka peds. I don't know why

(01:52):
I said that so excited, Ipromise I'm not like some kind of crazy
addict. But it's such an interestingtopic and sports nutrition. And if that
wasn't enough, he's also he wasthe lead subject matter expert for a comprehensive
twenty plus chapter NASM physique and bodybuildingcoaching program. Wow. So, without
further ado, let's get ready foranother mind blowing episode of Reality Check,

(02:16):
and I'm going to start with ourtopic introduction. Everybody loves the character Steve
Rogers aka Captain America, who originallyshowed up in Timely Comics, not Marvel
comics. He was in a Timelycomix in nineteen forty And did you guys
know that to create the skinny Stevethey had to shoot the scenes three different

(02:38):
times, once normal with everybody,the second time with just Chris Evans and
a green screen, and the thirdtime was with his body double. And
to make it more believable, theyhad to put marks on normal size Steve's
chin that were supposed to represent wheresmall skinny Steve's eyes would be and this
would help the other actors know whereto look in these scenes. And after

(03:01):
he receives his super Soldier injection andis exposed to the fider radiation, they
were able to zilm with Chris Evansat a regular size for the rest of
that movie. And I just thinkthe idea of the super Soldier serum is
extremely exciting, Like you guys seenme like dancing over here basically, And
both myself and doctor Scalente have workedin human performance settings for tumitively for a

(03:25):
very long time and both of usindividually for a very long time, and
experience we both have experience with Idon't know, you've done mostly bodybuilding,
you haven't doubled in strong man powerlifting. I'm not strong and powerlifting. No,
it's mainly be in bodybuilding or otheror other sports other stores. Okay,
perfect, Yeah, so I'm theI'll uh hold down the strong man

(03:46):
in powerlifting. Anecdotes here, Butit is a well known fact that those
athletes tend to experiment with a widerange of things that can enhance them because
they are very competitive and there's notas much regulation in those sports, and
so we do see those athletes reallypushing the envelope as far as human performance

(04:08):
goes. So, doctor Scante,tell me some of your initial thoughts with
Captain America and what do you thinkmight have been in that serum. Yeah,
well, first and foremost, Ireally appreciate the history of the movie
making because that's really neat that youhave that background and that information, uh
to see how how they were ableto capture some of this, especially from

(04:29):
from decades ago. Right, Butuh, you know that serum, you
know what could it be? Andand you know, is it really something
that is scie fy and uh,well, uh, there's there's there's a
little bit of science behind that becauseactually, uh, the US military has
been utilizing and examining for the useof performance enhancement drugs to enhance the performance

(04:53):
of soldiers. Uh So they've actuallyearmarked some of their funds for research in
government agencies to perform research on soldiersand mainly for the purpose of realistically enhancing
performance and actually even for the safetyof the of the soldiers themselves. So
usually it's taesoscone or tososcone derivatives thatare being used. Uh So they and

(05:17):
these would be considered anabolic steroids thatare utilized, and they're used in moderate
too, I'm gonna say low tomoderate dosages, not in not in extreme
super physiological dosages, because obviously safetyis still a concern and that they don't
go for long terms. But butthere are actually if you actually go on

(05:40):
just you can go on on aGoogle scholar and put in anabolic steroids and
US Army or anabolic steroids and military, and then you can actually see some
of these puriity publications that have beendone. Uh they've even been doing some
of this in rats, for example, or or other rodents to see if
exposure to some of these anabolic agentscan actually work in alleviating symptoms for example

(06:09):
from well as you know, asa soldier you're going to be going and
you're going to have explosions all thetime that are going to be going on,
and this may actually cause small amountsof brain traump and then that small
amount of brain trauma can actually leadto a reduced testosteroil production over time.
Right, And I've known that withMMA fighters are at such a huge risk

(06:31):
of low testosterone throughout their career.Absolutely, so there's a link between all
of these. So you know,some of the things that they're actually looking
at is, hey, can weactually utilize some of this tsosterone or disoscone
derivatives to maybe alleviate some of thesesymptoms in these soldiers who have gone through
these different flasts. Other specific researchthat has been done that's actually very interesting

(06:57):
is as you know, soldiers arego through uh, very intense training and
they may go on very intense missionswhere uh sleep is going to be deprived,
uh if they're going to have avery limited amount of food. And
we know just those two things alone, sleep deprivation is going to be it's
gonna significantly impact your ability to performto think. Uh, it's going to

(07:21):
decrease uh to safc row levels.It's going to also decrease leave body mass
over time. So it's it's it'snot a not a good situation that in
that stress alone. Secondly, havinga severe caloric deficit. So if you're
if you're only eating three five hundredand eight hundred calories a day because there's
limited amount of food or limited timeto eat because you're on a mission to

(07:45):
save your life, it's going tobe very difficult to And of course you're
you're you're moving, you're you're you'rerunning, you're you're you're walking, you
have a backpack, you have gearon. Uh, you might have to
climb, you might have to stoop, may have to X y Z.
So all all of the military stuffthat you would see in a movie is

(08:07):
there. It's relevant. And asa result of that, think of all
of the caloric expenditure that is goingon with these soldiers. Uh, the
the the stress of being in thatyou may you may die in this mission.
So you have lack of food,you have the stress of potential death,
and then you have the stress oflack of sleep because you don't have

(08:28):
time to sleep. Obviously, nowyou're in this mission for two weeks,
three weeks, four weeks over time, where it's gonna it's gonna have major
impacts on your body. So whatwe do know collectively these soldiers are gonna
drop a significant amount of lean bodymass. Uh. They're gonna uh and
their body's gonna kind of go intoa conservation mode. Not only that they're

(08:50):
not going to be as alert,they're not going to be as strong,
they're not going to be able toperform as much. So what they've actually
done is, hey, let's actuallysee if we can maybe enhance or performance
and minimize the amount of muscle massthat they're going to lose and minimize the
amount of strength that they're going tolose by giving them a special serum,

(09:11):
right, and that special serum wouldbe basically like a performance enhancement drug,
which would be like an anabolic steroids. So they give them dosages of tasosceroide
at different dosages anywhere from two hundredmilligrams of to seven hundred and fifty milligrams
and then so it's not it's notexuberant, but it's enough to potentially create

(09:35):
that performance enhancement benefit. And ofcourse they are monitoring other health risk factors
as well. They're not just givingit blindly. You know, it is
medically supervised and it's given in amore responsible setting. And then they're measuring
what are the effects of some ofthese factors so that in terms of their

(09:56):
ability to can they retain some oftheir lean mass over time? Those are
strength maintained? Is it maintained overover a period of time? So there
are various studies that have actually beendone in this regard. So this is
the type of special serum that Ican be used by some of these different
agencies that have been investigated. Soit sounds like they're primarily using testosterone,

(10:22):
and I know there's a cocktail ofthem out there. And I will say
disclaimer to anybody listening who's under eighteen, don't touch it. If you're if
you are still developing, don't evenlook into this stuff. Just look at
it with a curious mindset. Andif you ever do decide that it's something
you want to look into, look, I can't stop you, nobody can

(10:43):
stop you. But please consult witha highly qualified professional before you touch anything
that can chemically alter your body.And that'll be my soapbox. If you
want to add anything to that,you can. But now I do know
that an of R was originally designedto help prevent muscle wasting. So is
that something that could potentially be beneficialto them as well or are there potentially

(11:05):
harmful side effects that would minimize thebenefit to them. Yeah, there are.
So anabar is obviously disaucerone derivative,but the way that it's usually administered
is orally and for it too notto be broken down and for it to
be effective, it's got to bealkylated at the seventeenth carbon atom for it

(11:28):
not to go through that first bypass. So in other words, if you
don't alkylate oral steroids at that seventeenthcarbon atom, then your body's going to
break it down and it's not goingto really get to produce the effects that
you want it to. So it'sgoing to basically break it down and you're
going to have no effects. Sooral steroids are all alkolated at the seventeenth

(11:50):
carbon atom to allow for oral administrationto be effective. That being said,
they pose the greatest risk. ItIt sounds counterintuitive that that an oral pill
is more harmful than an injection,because an injection sounds more i'm gonna say

(12:11):
intimidating per se, But at thesame time, Actually, oral steroids have
actually higher higher risk factors and andhigher things to be concerned about, so
really that the injection is the preferredmethod of choice, or pellets. There
are pellets that can be oh theyget inserted. Yeah, I load those
of some of that, but buttypically I tend to not recommend at all

(12:37):
oral steroids or if if you're ifpeople do them very short amounts of time,
because prolonged use of that can reallycreate liver injury over time. So
whereas what you don't see the sameeffect with with the oral I mean with
the injectible versions of the substances,So any any one of those that are

(12:58):
oral derivatives are are going to beactually create more harm in the long term.
So use short term probably not abig deal. But if you if
you're using anabar for a long periodof time, and long period of time
could be you know, twelve weeks, you're going to actually see elevated liver
enzymes pretty quickly because your your liverhas to break that down. So it's

(13:20):
going to be any when you're doingan injectable, you're not going to have
to do that. And I wantto backtrack a little bit. I'm glad
you said you gave the disclaimer becauseI think so many times people just want
a shortcut to getting the results andthey automatically think, oh, it's just

(13:41):
because of steroids or peds that peopleget this, and you have to really
backtrack a little bit. Is youhave to realize whether we're talking baseball,
where you know players are hitting youknow, sixty seventy home runs a year,
or your your sprinters like the MiriamJoneses that are that are breaking world
records. Uh, you know,these people were the best of the best

(14:03):
before they even touch the stuff,and they were doing a lot of things
right before they even touched the stuff. So I always like to say there's
a higher chy in what you needto do. And at the very bottom
of that hierarchy is basically you know, what's your genetic potential and who are
your parents? Right, So there'sa big component of that. And then
layer the top of that is goingto be you know, are you training

(14:24):
properly? Are you dieting properly?Are you're feeding your body the appropriate micro
and macro nutrients to support your training? Are you sleeping enough? Are you
are you are you getting wasted?Every weekend, you know, and and
and drinking a significant amount of alcohol. Because if and I'm thinking of that

(14:45):
that young individual right that they think, oh, if I take this,
that's what's going to get me tothe next level, But they're doing all
these other things wrong. Right,So we can't choose the fate of our
parents. But we can't choose ifwe train right and effectively and efficiently,
And Sarley, we can't choose ifwe sleep enough and adequately. We can't

(15:05):
choose if are try to kind ofmitigate our stress by you know, the
choices that we make. We can'tchoose if we drink or not, or
if we do how much and howoften. We can't choose what we put
in our mouth every day in gettingenough protein, getting enough micro nutrients,
getting enough xyz, getting enough calories. And if you're not doing any of

(15:28):
those things right, the drugs willwork, but they're going to work in
a much lower amount. And really, I think you need to build that
foundation of consistent training, consistent nutrition, consistent sleep, not for six months,
not for a year, I'm talkingfor years, and then build that
foundation and then reach your natural potentialand then figure out, you know what

(15:52):
it is, and you may realizeyou don't even need to use some of
these things, or you may realizeonce you're a mature adult and you have
the maturity and the financial resources tobe able to consult with a medical professional
in using some of this stuff,then you're going to be able to make

(16:14):
better decisions. Because that's another thingthat I like to say is sometimes people
think of first of all, there'sa cost to using to using these things,
and that could be quite a bigcost that people don't realize. Yes,
it can. I mean sometimes tothe to the tune of I'm talking,
you know, a thousand to fourto four or five thousand dollars a
month what it is that you're doingin the quantities, So that's number one.

(16:40):
Number two, no physicians that aregoing to prescribe any of this stuff.
So in the United States, youare breaking the law because it's it's
not a it's a controlled substance,right, and there are underground sources in
which you'd have to get some ofthis stuff. Number three is you also
have to realize that I like thesay, it's kind of like buying a

(17:02):
high end car. So let's sayyou buy your dream Mercedes or your dream
BMW and you take perfect I canafford that fifteen hundred dollars a month payment,
that's cool, But did you thinkabout how much are it's going to
cost to do the insurance and costto do the maintenance on that car when
you change the oil, when youdo all these other things. And this
is what the other external factors.So in addition to that costly month to

(17:26):
just get the stuff, you shouldhave ear marked a certain amount of money
to see a medical doctor, toget blood work done, to get other
medical tests, and to make surethat your health is good over time.
Because this stuff typically doesn't kill youacutely, it kills you chronically over time.
So if you're not monitoring all thesehealth biomarkers over time, you're setting

(17:51):
yourself up for disasters. So andwhen we see the research, we actually
see that most anabolic steroid users whenthey start, they don't use it one
time or two times. They useit for an app for a range of
five to fifteen years. And ohyeah, that's because that's you know,
from from twenty to whenever you startwinding down your athletic career. And I'll

(18:15):
let you finish your point, butI do want to ask you. So
you've done a significant amount of researchwith this yourself, and ethically you can't
prescribe anything because, like you said, it's illegal, but observational research is
allowed. So you have been inthe fortunate academic position to be able to
research this, and this is Istill feel like pees it's you know,

(18:37):
it's research. It's researched in people'sgarage gyms, and you are truly one
of the few people who is puttingin putting this under an academic lens.
So I'm curious about your research.And the other thing I'm really curious about,
going back to what you were saying, is laying the groundwork of eating
a healthy diet, getting enough sleepand whatnot. That is the thing that
just kills me about our military ishow they just do not provide an environment

(19:03):
for their soldiers to do that.And I understand missions are one thing,
but then you look at some ofthese other places where these guys are being
brought up, like West Point.My husband went to West Point and just
hearing some of the stories of Okay, you guys have five minutes to eat
your food, eat a discuss asyou can, and just some are really
really unhealthy conditions, and then theyexpect their soldiers or operators to perform optimally

(19:26):
when they they didn't cover any ofthose basics to begin with. So those
are kind of my two questions.Is your research and then just talking to
how maybe some of our military memberscan undo the damage of their lifestyle that's
forced upon them through their job.Yeah, so great question. So the

(19:48):
research I have done, You're rightbecause of the line of work that we're
in, and because it's very rareto see most of the people that are
doing that are actually prescribing the stuff. You know there it's a medical group,
medical doctor. So like doctor polpeis a is a famous researcher in
Harvard who actually does a lot ofthis up. He's he's a medical doctor

(20:11):
and a PhD. Uh, andhe is actually one of the few people
that has prescribed people some of thesethings. And again it's medically supervised.
That being said, you can onlygive so much drug, right, So
the highest quantities that have been reportedin the literature are so far around six
hundred milligrams per week of disostro,which which is a high amount, but

(20:33):
it's relatively a low amount compared towhat is used of the field because there's
no way that an institutional review boardthat protects safety of participants is going to
approve you to give something to theeffect of two grams three grams of of
drug, where you know that isgoing to have deliterious effects, So that's

(20:56):
never going to happen. So,as a result, to your point,
most of the research that we seein the field has to be observational in
nature. So in other words,I'm not prescribing anything to people. I'm
not telling them what to take,how much to take. All I'm saying
is are you a performance annancement druguser? Yes? Or no? And
then I may take some that areyes, some that are no. And

(21:17):
then all I do is I observe, and I ask what are you doing,
what are you taking? How muchare you taking? And then I
can actually observe. I can docertain tests for example, like we can
measure blood pressure, we could measureand there are other things that have been
done like they've they've actually not inmy lab, but we've actually they've actually
studied, for example, different componentsof the heart like ejection fraction, or

(21:41):
they've measured other health biomarkers. Itcan actually take blood and look at what
happens to these different biomarkers such assome adequate levels or red blood cell counts,
or liver enzymes. So you canlook at other biomarkers of cardiovascular function
such as cholesterol, so you cando you can run a limpet panel and

(22:04):
see what's going on. So theseare all things that you can actually do
and you can actually to look atto see what are the repercussions or the
effects of these higher dosages on peoplethat take X, Y or Z.
So that's kind of the nature ofwhat we see in research and in my
lab. What we recently published.It just came out in the Journal of

(22:26):
Strengthing Editioning Research in August. Weactually looked at what were the nutritional,
exercise and performance and ennascement drug practicesof competitors leading up to competition in the
last thirty days. So one ofthe profiles that we ask is, hey,

(22:47):
what kind of drugs are you using? If you're using any There were
some that were not using, buta large percentage were. And then and
this was just at a local show. This wasn't at a pro level show.
This was a national qualifying event.And then we're asking that what are
the dosages that they took per week? UH, And we see a lot
of different things. We see SARMs, we see different types of anabolic steroids,

(23:08):
we see human growth hormone, wesee insulin, we see thyroid medication.
So we see a lot of differentthings that are that are being used
by these by these athletes, notprescribed by me or anybody else. It
was something that they chose to doand they were comfortable in reporting it.
And it's very interesting to see whatwhat we uh to UH to see what

(23:30):
what is what is reported reality checks. In addition, I've also had participants
come to the lab who are usingperformance assen drugs and some of the observations
that I make, I'll measure theirblood pressure and you know, you have

(23:51):
a twenty eight year old male orfemale UH with with hypertension. This is
somebody that's eating healthy. You know, it has a low body for percentage
and they have hypertension. Well,and then we me kind of ask why
you look at the drug profile andthen it probably makes sense because there some
of that can actually lead to hypertensionbecause increase a high amount of distosterone and

(24:17):
other performance aspen drugs can activate theren and Angiotenson system, the ROW system,
which can then increase hypertension. That'sone of the potential side effects and
other partyovascular effects that it can have. So those are the things that we
actually see, you know, withpeople coming in the lab. Yeah,
and that's it's so scary that it'slike you just said, they're taking all

(24:41):
sorts of different things because the coachingadvice that's coming out there that's not coming
from trained medical professionals is either well, this is what my coach had me
do or it's like this is whatI read on Reddit, and so it's
like it's so varied. So itis really neat what you're doing. Because
I would love I'm a big believerin research and legalization because I'm like,

(25:02):
I think we need to put thisstuff on the map academically so that people
can get educated so they're not gettinghurt. Because I do see the news
and bodybuilders are you know, thepro level ones are dropping like flies right
now and it's really sad. Andif we did have more education going into
this, we could save a lotof lives and not have such varied results
in what people are taking, andpeople could understand their left and right limits

(25:26):
of what's safe and what's not andwhat's maybe pushing it in a little bit
in the red. But it's okayif you're doing X, Y or Z,
and I just I think that's reallycool what you're doing. Yeah,
thank you, No, I appreciateit. And we did just publish a
paper at the end of twenty twentytwo looking at we looked at autopsy reports

(25:47):
of bodybuilders who died under the ageof fifteen, and it was actually,
this is related to cardiovascular debts.And you know, it's amazing and scary
when you see what is there.You know, the average age of death
was like thirty six, thirty sevenyears old, you know, and I
mean we saw we saw an individualdie, I mean twenty six years old,

(26:10):
you know, dying of cardiac complications. That's not a normal scenario.
When when you see it, andthen when you actually see the autopsy reports,
you see, well, what didthese individuals have in common? Well,
the weight of the heart. Sothe heart got too big essentially,
so we have cardiac hypertrophy occurring.Where the average human heart of a of

(26:36):
a of a male is about threehundred and seventy some grams, whereas these
individuals were basically at you know,close to six hundred grams the highest one.
Wow, you're kidding me. Yeah, So you see a lot of
this, and then you see leftpentricular hypertrophy that that's prominent in a lot
of them. You see a thorosclerosisthat's very common in a lot of them.

(26:57):
So you see some common threads.Uh and it you know, you
can't say cause and effect, right, but but there's definitely a smoking gun,
and you need to investigate further becausethere are other components that are going
to contribute to some of this.But nevertheless, Uh, one common denominator
is the the amount of anabolic steroidsthat they are using in the polypharmacy.

(27:21):
Uh, that that you see.So that's very common, and that's probably
why we see the military sticking tosmaller doses of testosterone, which kind of
circles back to my other question ishow can we how can service members or
operators mitigate you know, all theatrophy and the issues that they're experiencing in

(27:44):
the field or even just guys goingto West Point or in OOT camp or
just you know, any military jobsor even first responders for that matter.
Yeah, and and I you know, this is kind of a difficult question
because I do see the point ofif you're a soldier, you kind of
have to and if you're out onthe battlefield, right, you don't have

(28:07):
the luxury of eating every three hours, you don't have the luxury of sleeping
eight hours, you don't have theluxury of training. Uh, you don't
have the luxury of water uh ina lot of instances. So as a
result, I think, uh,the reason they kind of train him in
this regard is because that's the realityof what their environment could potentially be uh

(28:30):
when they're when they're out on thefield. So I think if they don't
do that, they maybe do withthem at disorber because then they never experience
that. Now that being said,I think you have to kind of find
that balance within that because obviously ifyou're if you're trying to maximize performance,
then you need to take some ofthese things into consideration uh to be able
to to do that. And andI think you may be able to find

(28:52):
a compromise or maybe uh. Andand the the Army, the military is
actually working on some of this whereI actually just reviewed a paper on different
types of gels and bars that areused for the military, and uh,
they're actually looking at that. Component'slike, what kind of functional foods can

(29:14):
be made available to these soldiers thatthat is easy for them to consume on
the field, in the battlefield,in when they're out and about that is
actually more nutritionally balanced, that canactually maximize muscle protein synthesis. Uh,
that has adequate amounts of protein andthe right quality of protein. So this

(29:34):
is some of the things that theyare looking at right now, which is
actually it's actually very interesting to seeit because it's it's it's something that is
needed. And then now what they'reseeing is like, hey, some of
these bars that they're maybe they're using, maybe it wasn't the best composition of
food and maybe not the best typeof quality protein. So can they give

(29:56):
them something else that's going to bemore more efficient for them to be able
to use, more beneficial for themwhen they're out on the field. So
to your point, so that theyare getting better fuel and minimizing the losses
that they may get from from beingin those conditions. That's cool. So

(30:17):
it sounds like, I mean,I'm so glad to hear the working on
it, because it just kills meto see these guys, suffering guys and
gals, But it really makes methink about more like any other future technologies.
And like in Captain America, theybrought the vita radiation into the mix.
He gets injected with his serum andthen it's he's exposed to the vita
radiation and boom, he's a foottaller, he's super muscular, got handsome.

(30:41):
I'm like, I'll take that drug. That's like just what we look
good. But are there any otherI don't know, just future enhancements or
emerging technologies beyond chemical that are complementaryto augmenting human performance. Yeah, I
think that's a good question. Anduh, I think we touched on one

(31:03):
briefly, which is you know,nutrition. I think I think, I
mean, what what is what isthe most potent drug? I mean when
I when I speak to different athletes, I tell them it's like, you
know what, what's the most potentdrug that you can use that's legal your
food? Right and and and realistically, I mean that is your that is
your energy system, and that thatis the way that you can really fuel

(31:25):
your your body. Uh So,you know, to name it a drug
is probably not appropriate, but itis. It is a tool that can
definitely help you. Uh And andessentially I mean food food. Foods are
chemicals in a sense, right,so that's that's the way our body breaks
them down. So it's just thatthey're different organic chemicals that are broken down
and and through biochemical processes. Wewe utilize them for energy, we utilize

(31:49):
them to build muscle, we utilizeit for all of the biological functions that
are there. So when we seethe food, I think, uh,
looking specifically at what type of macroand micronutrients and in what ratios can we
actually use and and focusing the technologyon that we can actually get a lot

(32:10):
of benefits. And then even lookingat things as like you know, not
only quantities, but even potentially timingof some of these things. And with
the soldiers specifically, I think that'ssomething that again they're kind of starting to
look at where you know, you'renot going to be able to sit down
and have you know, a chickenbreast and some rice and some vegetables and

(32:31):
oatmeal and egg whites and berries,and you know, be able to sit
down and have a gourmet meal,but you may be able to get get
this bar under your belt, thatthat's not going to spoil, that's not
going to melt. That is afunctional food that is going to give me
uh you know, some fiber,some micronutrients, the right type of protein,

(32:51):
the right quantity of protein, sothat I can actually absorb it,
that's not going to accept my stomach, that I can actually function, I
can think and and and fuel mybody accordantly. So I think that's one
way in which we can we canlook at things. Hydration strategies should be
something else, right, So whatwhat type of things can they do to

(33:13):
maintain their hydration levels? So obviouslyyou're gonna have to drink fluids in addition
to that, but you know maybein certain extreme environments maybe uh they in
many to be enhanced with certain electrolytesthat that may actually enhance performance. So
looking at looking at back technology andthen other things that may help would be
any of the any any information thatyou can get to look at their uh

(33:37):
that gives biofeedback for example, Sosome of the wearable technology can actually cut
my order ring on I love ora ring big fan sponsored. Yeah,
absolutely, no, I think Ithink it's great. So you can actually
look at you know what is happeningunder these certain conditions, and then you
can gather that data and then youcan actually you can and make decisions based

(34:00):
on those biomarkers that your body isreading, whether it's based on heart rate,
you know, or sleeps, qualityof sleep, all of those things,
heart avariability, those are all thingsthat I think that can be monitored
and then you can actually see theeffects of different interventions that you're doing.
Yeah. So what I'm hearing,which I love, is that there's not

(34:22):
really any emerging technologies that are newor different, like I don't know,
electro magnetism or radiation or something kindof sci fi futuristic that could aid in
our enhancement. Enhancement. It's allof the tools that we already have at
our disposal, and I just lovethat. But there's there's nothing because I've

(34:43):
I've heard I don't know, someweird things, like someone told me about
there's like this I don't know ifit was like a wearable like a band
or something that it cools down yourblood so it slows down fatigue because you
stay cooler longer and the body doesn'thave to work as hard to prevent fatigue,
like are there any I guess thiswould be so much in the bodybuilding

(35:06):
sphere, but when dealing with thingslike soldier fatigue and needing to perform at
high levels for a long times,are there any other technologies that are emerging
that can aid with advanced human performance? You know that I think I probably
haven't read enough in that particular areato see what is available. I mean
there, I'm I'm always a skeptic, you know when it comes to some

(35:30):
of this, you know, asit's but I'm I'm one of those that
I never I like to learn fromeveryone. And then you know, just
because I'm a skeptic doesn't mean thatI'm not going to look at it.
So what I like to see islike, Okay, we have this technology,
here's the proposed mechanism of action.Here's the proposed benefits of what it
may do. Okay, so nowlet's let's put the scientific lens to it,

(35:52):
and then let's test it, youknow, over time, and and
then to me, I like tosee, you know, make sure that
it's a well conducted study. Uh, you know, that's that everything is
controlled accordingly to the best possible way. You know, everything is randomized.
Statistics are running correctly, Uh,that it's addedquately powered with with with with
a good sample size, uh,you know, controlling as much as much

(36:15):
of the variables as you can,and then you know, test it out,
test the hypothesis and see see ifit works. And then if you
if you see positive results in onethen okay, cool, we have now
one piece of evidence. That doesn'tmean it's it works for sure. I'd
want to see you know, threeor four other studies conducted in different labs

(36:36):
with different people that that don't havenecessarily a you know, a conflict of
interest in in what they're doing,right, and and to me, you
know that that's the biggest thing ifyou if you only see you know people.
This is a good little sidebar becausepeople sometimes often say, well,
this reason just positive because it's it'sfunded by the company, right, Well,

(36:59):
but who's going to fund research otherwise? Right? Like, I mean,
oh, that's actually a great point. I mean a pharmaceutical company is
only going to test their drug.Where are they going to test somebody else's
drug? So it's because a pharmaceuticalcompany sponsored the research doesn't mean that it's
it's a bias study. What youwant to be careful with is you know,
you know who conducted the study,was it well, was it randomized,

(37:21):
was it controlled? What analysis weredone? And then now if you
only see one study from one companydone by the same lab over and over
again, I don't raise a redflag, but I raise a yellow flag
because it's only one lab, soyou know, is there a relationship there?
But now if I see that thatcompany sponsors research with lap A,
B, C, and D,and now we see consistent results among all

(37:45):
these different labs, then I'm goingto be a little bit more accepting of
that because I'm going to see,because you may have one bias scientists,
that you may be able to buyout, but it's unlikely that you're going
to be able to buy out four, five or six because you know,
as scientists, we we we takein our research and in our reputation and
reality check the signs. So,for those of you listening, doctor Esconte

(38:12):
and I we are both members ofthe National Strength and Conditioning Association. So
we were talking a little bit atthe national conference this past year and I
told him that that was something Iappreciate about you is that you live in
both worlds. You are highly academic, but you're not just a nerd who's
just sitting there reading books all thetime, like you are also very active

(38:32):
involved in like I guess, likeyour self research, and so you truly
intimately understand everything that you're doing moreso than just what someone's doing with like
the research only. So I thinkthat's super cool, and it's it's interesting
to see like what kind of theselimits of human performance could really end up

(38:54):
being, because we're talking about likewhat some of these drugs can do and
what they can't do. So let'ssay, let's go back to your original
metaphor, we're talking about having allof your baseline things taken care of.
I've always thought of it this way. You have your offense and your defense,
or you have your above the lineand below the line. Your defense
would be everything below the line sleep, nutrition, hydration, electrolyte, low

(39:15):
stress, like that would be everythingdefense. So above that, if we're
thinking offense, that would be allof the augmentation, the stuff that's beyond
that. So let's just play aroundwith some hypotheticals here. Because in the
movie Steve can run thirteen miles ina half hour, which is a half
marathon. In a half hour,which is half the time of the current

(39:37):
world record, which is held bya Kenyan Alexander most Steo. I hope
I said that name right. Sowhat are some of our current understandings of
the limit of peds and how muchthey can enhance someone? And I've always
heard it described as like with thosenos boosts you put on the car fast

(40:00):
and furious. I've actually never seenthose movies, but I know about them.
But you can put one of thoseboosts on like a crappy little Honda
Civic and yeah, it's gonna makeit faster, but it's only gonna go
that much faster. Or you canput a booster on a Ferrari and it's
gonna fly. So again with yourhaving your defensive stuff lined up, it's
like, you want to make sureyou're a Ferrari before you start to boost

(40:22):
yourself. You don't want to tryand strap a rocket to a Honda Civic.
Yeah. No, I think that'sa great analogy to do that,
and to say that because a lotof people do like this, try to
strap that that booster on on theirold beat up you know, uh,
not even on hon the Civic.That's too you know, on their their
their pint. You know they're thereare four pinto from back in the day

(40:45):
that that's barely up and running.So you know, so you're doing all
these other things wrong and then youwant to take this shortcut to take this
this drug and it's just not gonnawork. I mean, it's gonna work,
but it's not gonna work at maximumcapacity. Where if you have,
if you have, like you said, all your defensive basi of basis covered,
now all of a sudden, you'regonna be able to do that.

(41:05):
And then that being said, alsoyou know, we can't choose our parents.
And there's a lot of inter individualvariability in our responses to training,
our responses to nutrition. So youalways have hyper responders, modern responders,
and non responders to everything where Imean, you see this in the science
where you know, I love tolook at the inter individual variability. So

(41:28):
when they report those, so youmay have individuals going through the exact same
nutritional intervention, training intervention, dietarysupplement intervention, and you have some responders
that are like WHOA like, theyrespond, their strength goes way up,
and then you have other responders todo the exact same thing that are male
or female that are the same age, and then they get worse sometimes or

(41:52):
they only get like a tiny bitbetter. And you see some of these
things that do occur. So Ithink that the same thing happens with some
of these performance and asthmen drugs,where you're gonna have some individuals where a
little bit goes a really long way, and then you have others where a
lot it takes a lot to getthe same amount of response. So I

(42:15):
think this is where there's a disconnectwhen sometimes people say, oh, well,
you know this strong man or thistop level bodybuilder, like they say
that they only take this much stuff, they must be lying, not necessarily.
I mean, it could actually bethat they're so genetically gifted and there's
such hyper responders for that particular stimulusthat it only takes a little bit of

(42:36):
that to really get that great responsefor them. And same thing with side
effects, because I like to usethis example. You've probably seen that grandma
who's been smoking for seventy five yearsand just doing great, great. We
doesn't die of cancer, right,you know, but with her, it's
like she doesn't really respond negatively tothis smoking stimulus. So the same thing

(43:00):
with the performance asmen drug. Youmay have an individual where they can take
a lot of drug and it doesn'treally affect them negatively, whereas another individual
just a little amount of drug cangreatly affect their cardiovascular system, their kidneys,
their liver, et cetera, etcetera. So there's a lot of
those different things, which is whywe're going to kind of go back around

(43:23):
to our first point, which isyou need to monitor your health all the
time to see what is going onwith your health as you're using these interventions
and different quantities, and not onlymeasure it when you're off, because that's
what often a lot of people do. It's like they only measure things.
I'm going to go to the doctorwhen I'm off cycle. No, you

(43:45):
need to go to the doctor whenyou're off the stuff to kind of figure
out so you have a baseline,this is what happens when I'm off,
I'm not completely off, this iswhat happens when I'm on at high levels,
and then this is what happens whenI'm off at completely or off at
lower levels. And what's the trend? Because if certain biomarkers are creating a

(44:07):
negative trend over time, then that'snot necessarily a good thing. So cholesterol,
for example, if you see yourHDL cholesterol consistently low and your HDR
LDL cholesterol consistently high, and yousee your blood pressure consistently high when you're
on these drugs, there's going tobe some cardiac remodeling going on, and

(44:29):
you better pay attention. It's notgoing to happen overnight, but over the
course of five, ten, fifteenyears, that's where you're going to have
some problems. Interesting. Interesting,Wow, I am just eating this up
right now. I'm really kind ofthinking back to Mike Stone. So doctor
Stone is another legendary person in thefield. I respect him a lot.

(44:52):
But he did a really fun lecturewhile back about the past, present,
and future of the profession of strengthand conditioning, human performance and research,
and he was talking about some ofthe things in the future, you know,
talking about things like crisper and physicalaugmentation is putting different kinds of metals

(45:13):
or systems in the human body toenhance performance. But it makes me really
think about what you just said isis some people perform, some people are
super responders, and some people reactvery poorly. Can we test too?
Is there any way that we canpredict who's going to perform or respond really
well or really poorly to something?Is that genetics? Is it something we

(45:36):
don't know what it is right now? Like, is there any way for
us to test and predict how someone'sgoing to respond to something? Yeah?
I think, I mean or startingto be able to see some of that.
You know, you see you seedifferent you know, different genetic components
of an individual or different different thingsare going to be expressed other different conditions,
and some are going to be expressedmore than others. But the problem

(45:59):
with that is is that there's thereare so many things that we could look
at. Is like which one doyou do you kind of identify? Uh,
and to actually identify the specific oneand and I'll give what one big
example is, uh, you know, like with with creating monohydrate, we
have responders and non responders with someof that, and you know, like

(46:20):
one one baseline responder. Uh.Thing that that you can typically see is
like well, if you're if you'rea vegan, you're typically going to be
a good responder because you're you're resting, creating levels are going to be low.
Uh, Therefore you're probably going torespond high, rather than somebody who's
who's not vegan, who consumes uh, who consumes uh, you know,
some meat products. Uh, they'rethey're resting. Creating level is going to

(46:44):
be relatively higher. But that beingsaid that there may be some genetic components
there in addition to that that mayactually make people more responders or or less
responded to to to this particular inthis case creating, but it could be
fill filling creative, with filling theblank, right, with training with a
particular protein intake, with a particulardrug that you're using, you're going to

(47:06):
have different responses. And and thething is is there are so many,
so many genes that we could lookat that we don't really know which one
to target. So I think we'removing in that direction. I think,
you know, we're starting to seesome of these things, you know,
with regards to to genetics and testing, but I think we have a long

(47:27):
way to go. That's so excitingbecause it's like I just we just uploaded
the Dune episode where we talked aboutgenetic enhancements and how the Beni Jesser order
in the world of Dune is ableto modify their genetics over time, and
that episode ended up going to reallyheavy into epigenet or not epigenetics, eugenics,

(47:47):
and it was it ended up beinga very grave warning for us to
not play god. But it's likeand I and I understand that, and
I heed that, but there's stillthat deep temptation. It's like, let's
see just how high a human canjump, Let's see how strong we can
get a human. And it's like, I think, with my personality type,

(48:09):
I'm a performance driven person. Ialways I'm going to be curious with
how far we can push a humanbeing ethically to the highest level of performance
possible. But it's like, wedo need to remind ourselves as a scientific
community. It's like when we startlooking at things like genetics, like we
learned in the Dune episode, youdon't know what expressing one gene could do

(48:30):
to something else, because you couldyou could select for a certain gene,
but you don't realize that that gene'salso associated with something completely different. Yeah,
if you guys are interested in thatepisode, ILL like that one so
you can get that whole spiel frommy geneticsitist expert. But I'm also curious
and I did have some people askme to ask you this question. SARMs.

(48:53):
They're such a hot topic right now. Are they something that academically we're
looking at as a viable option forhuman performance or soldier augmentation in the future,
or are they just some weird sayingthat a bunch of guys in their
warehouse gym are getting really into becausethey're not a ped but they are.

(49:15):
And for those of you listening,I'm doing quotations. Yeah, no,
that's that's a good question. Beforeyou go there, I'm gonna I'm gonna
answer that question. But there's abook that actually talks about pushing the limits
of human performance. It's called ThePerfection Point. And if you haven't read
that book, it actually kind oftalks about it hypothesizes, like like,

(49:37):
what's the fastest we can we canrun the one hundred meter dash, what's
the fastest we could swim a certainevent? And it kind of gives some
hypotheses based on the technology that isavailable, and it basically kind of pushes
all of the elements of human performance. And it's a really cool book.
So if you haven't read it,I encourage and I read it a few

(49:57):
years ago and I have to lookit up as I couldn't remember the title
of it, but it's called ThePerfection. How Fast, how far?
How high? I'm definitely going toread that because I'm really interested in that.
Yes, arms everybody, it's thequestion that every I want to say,
like every guy in college and theirtwenties and their thirties, they're like,
it's not a drug, so it'snot as bad. It's like,

(50:20):
it's you're the expert. Yeah,so it is a drug. It's it's
selective androgen receptor modulators. Uh Sobasically they are drugs. They're they're they're
very they're they're most of them arenot at the approved for anything. There's
very little that we know about themand what we see. Actually, there

(50:43):
was an article published not too longago by doctor Darren Willoughby and his group
of individuals, and they actually tookan individual that was using some psarms over
a period of time. It wasa case study, and you know,
they did find some some improvements inuh in performance, but we see a
lot of deleterious side effects. Andin fact, what we see is the

(51:07):
deleterious side effects are you know,as bad or worse than using anabolic steroids
or other performance aspen drugs and thatthe amount of benefit is actually not as
good. So oh yeah, youwould know that with the bro science.
The bro science loves it. Yeah, it's so there. So what we
see is there there's really not alot of I mean, if you're if

(51:29):
you're gonna choose, if you're goingto cross, if you're going to cross
the road. So number one asARM is still crossing the road. So
it's not it's not you know,it's not it's not creatine, it's not
protein. A SARM is crossing theroad to a performance assmen drug. Now,
so it's a type of performance asbeen drug. How effective is it

(51:49):
not? Very? Uh that thathas a lot of side effects? Uh,
and and we we know very littleabout him. Uh. You know,
again, there's there's been a lotof research on anabolic steroids over the
years because they were used and theyargused medically and prescribed medically for a lot
of different reasons. So we haveresearch going back, you know, sixty
seventy years plus in in that arenaSARMs, we don't have a lot and

(52:15):
in fact, again this is whythey're not Most of them are not at
the approved So you're really not goingto get the same benefit and you're going
to probably get as much of notmore side effect. So the just the
benefit ratio is different. The onepeople were The one group of individuals where
it's a little bit different is withfemales because they do have they do have

(52:38):
that ergogenic benefit. They do stillhave some potential consequences, but the main
thing is is the virilization is usuallya lot less with them. So virilization
in females is going to be typicallyless with psarms than with them with others.
You know, those are appropriate.That being said, we have a

(53:00):
lot of research today on uh,the effects of females in using anabolic steroids
because, uh, what is thebiggest thing that we see a lot of
people doing, which it is basically, uh, the the transgender population.
Right Yeah, I wasn't even thinkingabout that, but that's massive hormone usage.

(53:23):
It's huge. So so if youhave if you if you have a
female that wants to become a transgendermale, what is the number one thing
that they're prescribed It's going to begrowth. So we have a ton of
research on that whereas and we knowactually where where that where you you cross
the line because the side effect fora female who doesn't want to look like

(53:45):
a man would be virilization, right. So, uh, but you know
where you cross that line because that'sa desired quote unquote side effect for a
female looking to be a transgender male. They want to look like a man,
right, They want to be morethat have those male characteristics. So
as a result, we actually knowlike how much what kind of dosages can

(54:09):
you utilize before you cross that line, because the goal of that research and
those individuals is to cross the lineso that they can look more like males.
And that's when their testosterone for women, that's when their testosterones starts getting
at or above like the five hundredlimit usually yeah, yeah, yeah,

(54:30):
and even even three hundred to behonest, that's the lower end of that's
the low nanographs for descol leader becauseeven at three hundred, I mean,
that's that's still significantly higher than whata female's going to produce. It's on
the low end for a male,but it's it's still on exorbitantly high for
a female. What would you sayis the optimal testosterone range for men?
For optimal not just average, Yeah, I would say somewhere in the neighborhood

(54:53):
of at least seven hundred to maybea thousand would be kind of a good
range where that validates me because that'swhat I say to all my athletes as
well, like that's where you wantto look to be, And it kills
me when they get their blood workback and they're at like one hundred and
fifty two hundred, Like you area twenty four year old man, you
should not be at one hundred andfifty. Yeah. Yeah, And if

(55:16):
they're doing that, then there's definitelysome environmental things going on. This is
where you're probably looking at alcohol intake, sleep, stress, other things.
McDonald's yep, all of it.So I have one more question before I
let you say if there's anything elseyou wanted to cover, But would peptides

(55:37):
are peptides similar disarms in the factthat they have more negatives than positives or
are they a totally different animal?Yeah, they're slightly different. But at
the same time, I think it'sone of those where there's not a lot
of research in them either, SoI think a lot of what we see
is anecdotal. So as a result, it's one of those where you really

(56:00):
have to take it with a grainof salt. And I mean you just
have to be so careful. Imean, I don't know if you if
you remember, I can't remember thatthe young gentleman's name right now. I'm
blanking on it. But uh,Bossom Lloyd. So Boston Lloyd died at
twenty nine years old. Okay,and Boston Lloyd he utilized anabolic steroids,

(56:22):
yes, But in addition to abusinganabolic steroids for many years, he abused
I mean, he was his ownself experiment. He abused everything, including
these these peptides and various types ofpeptides. And I mean, at the
end of the day, it's likeyou don't know what you're putting into your
body. It's you don't know whattheir side effects are. And he was

(56:45):
utilizing in higher dosages, so youknow, it's like, yes, he
did die. This is one goodexample where you know it's not always caused.
And in fact, a lot ofpeople say, well, it's because
of the sterois. I'm like,well, he was taking anabolic steroids,
yes, and high dosages, buthe was taking a lot of other things,
yeah, or well above and beyondthat, which which contributed I mean,

(57:07):
And he ended up having an aneurysmand he passed away, but he
was already on. He was likeon stage four liver or a kidney failure.
It's sus ound a funny age.Well it makes me think also,
like rich Piana and I remember whenhe died, everyone was just like,
you know, the steroids were probablyjust a fraction of the drugs that were
in his body when he died,because that guy was taking everything possible and

(57:31):
probably things that we haven't even heardof. He was, he was the
drug guy. This has been amazing. Has there been any other things that
you wanted to touch on or thatyou that you really wanted to mention to
this audience before we get to ourreality check moment, because you were like,
I could, I could talk toyou all day, but I know

(57:52):
you've got important things to do.So what are some other maybe important things
you wanted to share with us?Yeah, I think up this kind of
I'm gonna double dip on the importanceof working with a healthcare professional to get
your health check. And it iswhether you're on drugs or not. I
mean, I think a lot ofindividuals that are healthy, you know,
they avoid going to the doctor andgetting regular blood work done, so you

(58:15):
know, I mean, I thinkat middlemum once a year to check all
of those things. But definitely,if you're using performance assmen drugs, that
should be something that you do threeto four times a year, and visit
your doctor at least a couple oftimes a year to get all of those
things in check and make sure thatyou're monitoring your health over time, because
otherwise you're just putting your head inthe sand and you're not really looking at

(58:37):
what's happening, and you may lookgreat on the outside, but you're rotting
on the inside, and then beforeyou know it, you're going to be
a statistic and you don't want tobe a statistic. Yeah, yeah,
And there's I mean, there's somany resources for that. There's even online
systems that, like, you know, you can do subscriptions where it's it's

(58:58):
blood work. They keep your bloodwork call in like a nice database,
and if you have any recommendations forthose, you can email me and I
will put those in the link orin the description box below. But let's
do our reality check moment you ready, Let's do it. So on a
scale of one to five, howrealistic would you say that Captain America's transformation

(59:22):
was from pure fiction to science facts. Well, considering you ran a thirty
minute half marathon, I would sayit's probably a three just because it was.
It was a that's still very extremeregardless of what you're taking. But
regardless, there's definite at least somelikelihood that something was working. Awesome,

(59:47):
Well, already have it. Wegot a three, So thank you so
much for coming on. Are thereany other promotions places where people can reach
you if people want to follow upabout your research? Whe's the blessed places
for them to get ahold of you? Yes? I think the easiest one
is via my social media on Instagram, which is at doctor g Fit.

(01:00:07):
That's all spelled out so doctor gFit and you can find me there,
or you can actually just google meGuierramyscolante CSUSB or Guerois Galante Bodybuilding. You'll
get access to my website, oryou can find me on my university website
there and you can find my contactinformation. Perfect. Well, I'm definitely

(01:00:32):
excited to read more of your researchthat you're working on, and I know
you know we've done so much thepast seventy years of research, and the
next twenty I think are going tobe even more exciting. Because we have
such a greater foundation to build on. So I'm excited. So thank you
everybody so much for coming on RealityCheck today. Let me know in the
comments if you agree or disagree withDoctor Escalante's score of the Super Soldier serum,

(01:00:55):
and if you have anything interesting toadd or questions for anything that you
wanted to add to the conversation,please let us know in the comments.
Until next time, Reality Check Scienceob Fection

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Captain America: Can We Create a Super Soldier? | S01E06

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Captain America: Can We Create a Super Soldier? | S01E06