By Jason B. Johnson
How long can U.S. soldiers operate in the desert before succumbing to heat exhaustion, or military
pilots fly before fatigue sets in? And how serious is the danger to children who practice poor nutrition and don’t get enough exercise?
These are among the questions UTSA assistant professor Donovan Fogt from the College of Education and Human Development is seeking to answer. His research interests may seem disparate, but they all go back to one thing: the needs and capacities of the human body. Fogt’s search for answers actually began when he was a high school track and field athlete frustrated by the opponents he saw getting an unfair advantage from performance-enhancing steroids.
“Understanding how the body works is fascinating to me,” Fogt says. “People know how to fix their cars, how to program their computers, but they don’t know anything about what’s going on in their own bodies.”
Since he moved to the Department of Health and Kinesiology in 2005, Fogt has contributed to grant applications exceeding $1.7 million, with $621,104 already awarded and another $875,000 pending. His research has delved into dehydration, fighting obesity and the benefits of exercise on non-insulin-dependent diabetes. He also aims to help athletes and non-athletes alike improve their exercise regimens.
Fogt’s Exercise Biochemistry and Metabolism laboratory in UTSA’s Physical Education Building is filled with exercise bikes, heart-rate monitors, treadmills, a defibrillator and a body-weight scale accurate to 600 pounds. Lab equipment can be used to analyze the biochemical properties of blood, muscle and other tissues and measure numerous hormonal responses to changes in diet and exercise. Across the hall sits a large hydrostatic weighing tank for determining a person’s body-fat percentage, which Fogt says is much more useful than body weight for understanding one’s fitness level, weight loss or gain and risk of disease.
Fogt’s test subjects range from healthy normal-weight individuals to overweight and at-risk adults to coaches and athletes at various competitive levels, and they include members of the U.S. armed services. He has worked with marathoners, cross-country runners and other athletes from across South Texas.
But the majority of Fogt’s time and research are dedicated to funded studies such as a $231,000 Department of Defense grant to determine when fatigue begins affecting troops and pilots flying lengthy missions, a condition that can lead to deadly mistakes. The military is also concerned about dehydration, which results in increased attrition rates during basic training because of impaired health and performance. Fogt’s lab has been working on the research for two years, and he anticipates they have at least another year to go.
Dehydration danger
Dehydration is a leading cause of weakened physical and cognitive function and degrades fighting capability. It can also be deadly. Over the last decade, an average of three heat stroke and 30 heat exhaustion cases per year have been reported during U.S. Air Force basic training, which is conducted at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. One case of heat stroke in 1999 was fatal.
“Ideally, we’d like to be able to predict [fatigue and dehydration] in training, so a medic can determine if a soldier is near the breaking point and if we need to hold them back,” says Fogt. One way to do this, he suggests, may be through “smart uniform” technology. Such technology collects biomarks and biorhythms through clothing. The information is then transmitted to a remote location for analysis. Test pilots and astronauts already use similar gear.
The Air Force tries to prevent heat-related illnesses during basic training by conducting regular tests of trainees’ physical status, but inadequate hydration remains a significant contributor to lost training time. But because water is heavy and water carriers can be bulky, this can pose a logistical challenge.
Because of the range of water carriers available, Fogt compared the effectiveness of old-style canteens to the newer “camelback” hydration systems during the hottest period of the summer. Fogt’s team collected saliva samples from airmen to measure their fatigue levels. That study ended up proving that canteens were just as effective at keeping the troops hydrated as the more costly hydration system.
“We weren’t sure it was worth the expense; a canteen is a couple of bucks, whereas a camelback is somewhere around $30,” says Lt. Col. Lorie Brosch, flight commander for trainee health surveillance at Lackland. “We were looking at over a million dollars more per year.”
Sedentary risk
Fogt’s work also extends to the local community. He is part of a mobile health lab designed for health screening and study of adults and children throughout South Texas. Fogt notes that a sedentary lifestyle is even more of a threat to good health than a poor diet. “Low fitness levels contribute to heart disease. Even if you’re lean and eating well, a sedentary lifestyle increases your risk for cardiovascular diseases, including stroke and heart attack,” he says.
Sixty percent of U.S. adults don’t get the recommended minimum activity per week. The American College of Sports Medicine suggests that sedentary but otherwise healthy adults walk briskly for 30 minutes, which should equal about two miles, three times a week. Instead of walking, adults could do 30 minutes of active gardening or yard work three times a week to meet the recommendations.
“When we go out and measure health risk factors in South Texas communities, we see extremely low fitness levels. Unbelievably low,” says Fogt. “People just aren’t moving. That is the biggest problem, and it’s the most painful one to fix.”
In a school-based health screening study conducted on students from lower-income South Texas families, Fogt and his colleagues found that many obese children with pronounced diabetes risk actually eat less total food than their leaner peers.
“The food choices are higher in fat and sugar, but the primary factor for these kids’ poor health outlook is a lack of movement,” he says. “Our findings suggest that in this population of children, low physical activity as opposed to excess energy intake may play a greater role in their obesity and related diabetes risk. We’ve concluded that prudent advice might be to focus on increasing physical activity and intake of nutrient-dense foods rather than to restrict calorie intake.”
These findings also demonstrate the need for screening and early detection for children at risk for diabetes, he says. Fogt and his colleagues are awaiting publication of their findings in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.
From the lab to the nation
Whether it’s improving children’s health, finding ways to keep soldiers and airmen safe, or helping athletes improve their performance, Fogt is optimistic that research conducted in his lab will produce meaningful results.
But the ultimate test for his various projects is found not in the lab, but in translating his findings into action, he says.
“It’s a big challenge. Can we make policy changes related to the promotion of physical activity and other healthy lifestyle practices that affect the
entire [city of] San Antonio, South Texas and the
U.S. population?” |
