Celebrating a 35-Year Partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense

Pennington Biomedical has been a champion of the U.S. military, putting its nutrition and health expertise to use for the benefit of U.S. soldiers and their families, since the day the center opened its doors.

This 35-year partnership has netted improvements in what troops are served during training and while in the field, a better understanding of solider energy and food requirements, a unique app for soldiers and their families to improve physical and mental health and resilience, and an overall better understanding of the role of nutrition, fitness, and sleep habits on soldier performance.

The U.S. military has provided Pennington Biomedical with more than $106 million in grant funding for studies on warfighter health. The partnership began with a single $3.5 million grant from the U.S. Army in 1988. Donna Ryan, MD, who served as an associate professor at the time and eventually served as interim director, was tasked with overseeing use of the funds. She is widely credited for the success of the first grant which led to the now decades-long partnership. Those initial funds were used to study military nutrition, energy expenditure in soldiers, healthier garrison menu options, and the effect of stress and diet on performance.

As time went on, the Department of Defense increasingly understood the great value in Pennington Biomedical’s work, and many new projects began taking shape.

Every day the U.S. military must feed more than one million active-duty soldiers in ways that keep them fit and ready for combat. How to feed soldiers is even more complicated for those serving in the field. Pennington Biomedical was part of the team that developed the First Strike® ration—a replacement for Meals-Ready-to-Eat (MREs)—to feed soldiers in the field. The development of the First Strike® ration – which has the look and feel of a protein bar—came from the fact that prior to deployment, soldiers would “field strip” their MREs. Field stripping involves removing all the excess MRE packaging and unwanted items – bags, boxes, heaters, extra spoons, and accessory pack. Creative field stripping could reduce three MREs – one day’s worth – down to the same size as a single MRE. While this practice reduced the soldier’s load by only packing the most critical MRE parts, it also led to increased waste and reduced nutrient intake. A single First Strike® ration, which is 24-hours worth of food, is approximately 50% the size and weight of three MREs. Each First Strike® ration contains an average of 2,900 calories, or 24 hours’ worth of nutrition for warfighters on the move.

“During a military operation, the average soldier burns through more than one-and-a- half times the calories that the average American does each day,” Jennifer Rood, PhD, Associate Executive Director for Cores and Resources, said. “The problem is that under high-stress conditions and intense physical activity, soldiers typically sleep very little, and the sleep they get is frequently interrupted. The soldiers also consume far fewer calories than their bodies need.”

Additional research confirmed soldiers’ need for dietary protein during high activity military operations and the effectiveness of certain amino acids and nutrients in sustaining mental performance and immune function during periods of intense stress. This new information allowed for optimized nutrient content of rations to better protect soldiers from muscle wasting during missions at high altitude and to sustain performance during physically strenuous assignments.

“For soldiers, even a slight decrease in muscle or brain function can be life-threatening,” said Rood. “If we can help soldiers maintain their physical and mental performance, that can help more of them come home safely.”

The research demonstrated other changes resulting from being in the field. “As a result of prolonged operational stress, the soldiers’ testosterone and other hormone levels plummet. They lose fat and muscle mass and are injured more frequently,” Rood said. “They experience mental fatigue that can affect memory and concentration and make them less alert. Overall, the soldiers’ combat readiness declines.”

In 2019, through a three-year, $3.5 million clinical trial with the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine (USARIEM), Pennington Biomedical examined if weight and muscle mass loss could be prevented by maintaining warfighters’ testosterone at normal levels with a long-acting, low dose of the hormone.

This research built on Pennington Biomedical’s earlier work in this area, called the Optimizing Performance for Soldiers study. The study suggested that supplemental testosterone may increase muscle mass and reduce weight loss in young men who burn more calories than they consume over the short term.

Pennington Biomedical also received a second award in 2019 of up to $12.9 million over five years to analyze biochemical markers of gastrointestinal and metabolic health, nutritional status, appetite regulation, cognition health, physiologic function, and physiologic status in a variety of studies by U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine’s (USARIEM) Military Nutrition Division.

Pennington Biomedical will analyze tens of thousands of samples from previous USARIEM studies. Current research includes examining biochemical markers of stress and resiliency that may predict military career success and injury, studying how high altitude affects carbohydrate metabolism during exercise, and determining whether or not nutritional intake is linked to declines in physical performance.

“We are looking for the optimum fuel to feed our warfighters to maximize mental and physical function,” Rood said.

That said, there is more to soldiers’ health, performance, and readiness than nutrition. “Lack of readiness is a clear and growing threat to our national security,” Tiffany Stewart, PhD, who holds the Dudley and Beverly Coates Endowed Professorship and is the Director of Behavior Technology at Pennington Biomedical, said. “Almost 80 percent of the civilian population would be medically disqualified from joining the military due to weight, body fat and fitness abilities, but also because of medications and struggles with mental health. That’s a huge problem since we’re also losing soldiers for the very same reasons, on top of burnout and injury.”

“We are looking at the health of the whole soldier. We want our men and women in uniform to be ready for whatever they may face during their service, and that means being at their best both physically and mentally,” she added.

“Nutrition, fitness, sleep and mental health are our four targets and the keys to maximizing our soldiers’ health, performance, and resilience in the field and at home,” said Stewart.

In response to a growing need to provide mobile tools for soldiers that can go where they go, Stewart’s team developed the Healthy Eating Activity Lifestyle Training Headquarters (H.E.A.L.T.H.) program. The smartphone app targets nutrition, fitness, sleep, and mental tools to aid soldiers and their family members in combating stress in positive ways while maintaining health and performance metrics like the Army Physical Fitness Test, quality sleep, and adequate eating and nutrition habits, while deployed or at home. Over the last 15 years, there have been several updates to the program, as well as pivot programs, including the Army H.E.A.L.T.H. Intensive Program, which added a personal health coach component in addition to the app-based experience. These targeted efforts to aid soldiers in maintaining health and performance standards in the context of ever-changing and demanding missions provide soldiers with tools to use on their own time without going to a clinic. Stewart and her team also developed a companion program for soldiers’ families.

The Louisiana National Guard has helped hone and test the program through 137 units in 40 parishes. All soldiers in the Army currently have access to H.E.A.L.T.H., and more than 15,000 active-duty, reservists, and National Guard soldiers and their families have used the program. Soldiers and their families use Pennington Biomedical’s Army H.E.A.L.T.H. program to help them stay physically fit at home and assure they are prepared for combat and state deployments.

Now, through a new federal award of $3.6 million, Stewart and Rood will launch four additional projects to improve the health, performance and resilience of the American solider and Louisiana guardsmen and cadets.

In the first project, Stand Ready, Rood will establish connections between diet and disease with an eye on personal biochemistry and metabolic biomarkers to allow the military to optimize how individual soldiers eat. Precision Defense, also led by Rood, will investigate the need for different diets for male and female soldiers to increase iron absorption, reduce reliance on muscle glycogen as fuel, and minimize loss of lean muscle during strenuous military operations. Stewart’s Four Pillars of Defense will extend a wholehealth approach to Louisiana National Guard soldiers, their families and Louisiana first responders through AI-driven smartphone technology focused on nutrition, fitness, sleep, positive mental coping, stress management, and mental resilience training. Aim High, another Stewart-led project, will help youth and potential military recruits, including participants in the Louisiana National Guard’s 20-week residential Youth Challenge Program, get “Army ready.”

“We have the best military in the world, but that is not a reason to stop improving. Cutting-edge nutritional science and behavior technology-based programs that improve mental resilience, remedy the effects of post-traumatic stress, and keep our troops healthy are necessary and are pioneered at Pennington Biomedical Research Center,” said U.S. Rep. Garret Graves, R-Baton Rouge, who recently led efforts to secure new Congressional funding to support this work. “This is great for our military men and women and great for our country. I am thankful that this research begins right here at home, and I remain committed to building upon Pennington Biomedical’s many successes.”