Show notes
In this episode, you'll learn about the FDA-cleared medical device that's been shown in clinical trials to reduce the risk and severity of brain injury in athletes. THIS UNMILLENNIAL LIFE PODCAST SHOW NOTES LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Q30.com - use code REGAN for 10% off Alcohol Minimalist Podcast The Sober September Episode The Kids and Concussions Episode (Part 1) The Kids and Concussions Episode (Part 2) Athletic Brewing Company COMMERCIAL LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Your Color Guru - use code REGAN for 10% off EPISODE KEYWORDS podcast, umillennial, Gen X, podcasts for women, women over 40, women over 50, teen athletes, repetitive head impact, concussion prevention EPISODE TRANSCRIPT (transcript generated through AI; may contain spelling errors) 0:00 If your skin doesn't know whether to breakout or wrinkle, if you're caught between planning the third grade class party and researching retirement plans or if you want to work out with the idea of CrossFit makes your 40 Something knees a you've come to the right place. Welcome to This Unmillennial Life. Regan Jones 0:24 I'm your host, Regan Jones, and welcome to today's show. So this episode kicks off the second half of season seven, it is hard to believe that we are now in real-time going into the year 2024. That this is the seventh season of the podcast. As I have said a numerous times over the last couple of years, it's been a rocky couple of years, for me, and for many of us who has it not been a just a strange, strange time for but we hopefully continue to get back into whatever our newest normal is, and I'm hopeful for 2024 that it is going to be better than ever. Okay, so kicking off 2024 We're not going into any nutrition topics. Although I will give you a preview to tell you that I am about to hop on a plane in the next couple of days to head to an international nutrition conference. I haven't been back to this international nutrition conferences hasn't been held internationally since 2020. just mere weeks before the world sort of shut down was the last time that I attended this nutrition conference on an international scale. It was domestic last year and I attended it. But attending this nutrition conference often gives me some really, really challenging ideas about new nutrition and food topics to bring to you here on the podcast. I'm excited about that. But to kick off season seven, part two, we're actually talking about something that is completely really unrelated to nutrition, this could be filed under fitness, this could be filed under parenting, or just information that you likely have never been presented with. And that is the information about how a new FDA cleared device and it's actually not that new. You're gonna hear that here in the podcast, but it's new to many of us, an FDA cleared device is helping to reduce the injury problems, whatever you want to say associated would with repetitive head injury. Okay, I'm using the updated terminology right here in the beginning of the episode, because I already have the luxury of having gone through this interview and listen to all of this information. You'll listen to me start this episode, and my interview with my guest talking about concussion. And many of you probably if you have teen athletes or collegiate athletes that are in your family or even young athletes, you probably talk in terms of concussion and concussion prevention. We've had episodes related to concussions here on the podcast. But I think today's guest is a phenomenal job of helping us understand that the long term risks for our brain health is not just related to a once or twice, you know, incidents of concussion, but it's about this repetitive head injury. And my guest today is going to talk about how the topic that we're talking about the Q-Collar helps to seatbelt in an athlete's brain to help reduce the trauma associated with repetitive Head Impact. Okay, so joining me in today's episode is Suzanne Williams. Let me tell you a little bit about Suzanne. Suzanne is currently the vice president of sports marketing at q 30 innovations and they are the maker of today's topic, the Q-Collar at Q30 Innovations. Suzanne manages the company's relationships with professional and college athletes. And here's a little bit of Suzanne's background that I connect on a deeper level prior to q 30. She spent 17 years as an executive at Under Armour ating and it's transitioned from a startup to a globally recognized brand. And I say that I connect with that because Suzanne and I had a nice little conversation about Auburn University being one of the first, you know, universities to kind of take up Under Armour and many of you know or maybe you do or doubt that I'm an Auburn grad and I hope that if any of your Alabama grads don't lose you just with that acknowledging or or even Georgia grads, I've come to realize that even University of Georgia people don't necessarily like Auburn folks as much as I wish that they did. But anyway, so that was something that we connected on because I vividly remember when Auburn made that transition over to Under Armour and so she has just an extremely impressive background. She is also a mother to to young athletes, and I think that what you're going to hear in today's episode is just the vital importance of understanding what tools are available specifically the Q-Collar 5:00 as a tool to reduce the potential impact for head injury and repetitive head impact on our athletes. Okay, so with that, I'll say Suzanne, welcome to the show. Suzanne Williams 5:12 Thanks, Regan. I'm so excited to be here. Regan Jones Thank you so much for joining me. This is one of those interviews that as I told you, before we started recording is way overdue. And the reason it's overdue as listeners of this podcast, no, you know, this podcast is called This Unmillennial Life, which translates to mostly my Unmillennial Life, things that are happening in my life, kids, you know, things, people who listen to the show, you've heard me talk about my children, they've kind of actually grown up here on the show, and I've done an episode in the past about concussions. And from a nutrition standpoint, and Suzanne, I don't know that, you know, we didn't mention it ahead of time. I'm a registered dietitian. So we've talked about, you know, concussion protocol, the importance of 5:56 omega threes and even discussed creating on the podcast, you know, just in terms of that aspect. But one of the most important things that we've done, I think, in our family's life, is get a Q-Collar for my older son, who is a lacrosse player to wear after he experienced his first concussion. And as I was telling you, and I'll say to the listeners, you know, when people see this Q-Collar that my son wears, they will inevitably ask, what is that thing around your son's deck, and I'm able to tell them, It's a Q-Collar, I'm able to tell them, you know, that it's really intended to reduce his risk for concussion, but I cannot tell them how it works. So that's what you're gonna do here today, that and more is help listeners understand that because I have so many listeners who are in a similar position to me with sons and daughters that are playing lacrosse, that are playing football in a number of different sports hockey, for instance. And I really want to to help get this on their radar and help them understand. So unpack for us. How does the Q-Collar work? Suzanne Williams Yeah, it's a great question. And I'm excited to kind of give you the 32 second download. Because it's when you look at it, you know, it doesn't easily explain how it's working. But to give you a little bit of background on the Q-Collar, it's a class to medical device. It's FDA cleared, so it's safe, and it's effective. And what most people don't know about it is that it was actually inspired and designed to help war fighters in Afghanistan. So that was the real need for it. The US military came to a group of doctors and said, Look, our war fighters on the battlefield are experiencing high rates of TBI, traumatic brain injury, and they said, Can you build us a better helmet. And one of the doctors said, it's not the helmet, right? The helmet protects your skull from fractures, we need to make a device that protects the brain from brain slosh. Because when your brain moves within your school, that's where the injury occurs. And so this doctor said, I need to come up with an idea to create a seatbelt for the brain. And so he started focusing on jugular vein compression, which is how the Q-Collar works. So blood goes up in your head like normal, there's no changes there. But the Q-Collar puts slight pressure on the muscles outside of your jugular vein. So that's like right below your ear right behind your ear. That pressure is about the same as a necktie. So what it's doing is as bloods recirculating back to your heart, it's just compressing that jugular vein slightly, and it's leaving a backfill of about two or about one teaspoon of blood in the veins around your brain. And by doing that, it's helping to eliminate the extra space in your skull, that allows your brain to slosh. So your brain is a gelatinous material, and it sits in a bed of fluid. And when you move it moves within your skull. So it doesn't matter what helmet you're wearing. And it doesn't matter what plane surface you're on. If there's an impact, your brain can slosh within your skull. And that sloshing is what causes the injury. By backfilling that teaspoon of blood in the veins around your brain is essentially eliminating that extra space. And it's locking your brain in like a seatbelt, or like an airbag or think about bubble wrap, you know, we're bubble wrapping around your brain. So when you do have an impact, there's less opportunity for your brain to slosh, which means there's less opportunity for your brain to be injured. Regan Jones So the science is fascinating, and I appreciate you going through the detailed explanation of how it worked. I knew that there was something to do with the compression and blood flow, but I never really understood how that was helpful. Let so let me ask a couple of clarifying questions. When an athlete wears a Q-Collar and there is this the seatbelt for their brains, this slight bit of compression, do they notice anything different you know just in terms 10:00 of like cognitive ability, you know, like you think about like, is this? Does this feel any different to them when they're wearing the Q-Collar? Suzanne Williams Great question. So part of the FDA approval process was that we had to, you know, confirm that that slight amount of pressure has no adverse effects on you. So no, you won't feel it. So blood goes up like normal. You don't feel any different with that slight backfill, it doesn't change your heart rate, it doesn't change your blood oxygen levels, it doesn't change your reaction time, you don't notice it. It's essentially like you're sitting at a church service or at a wedding wearing a necktie. It's that same amount of pressure. In fact, people compress their jugular vein all the time, and you don't know it. So if you yawn, you're compressing your jugular vein. If you sleep on the side of your body at night, you're compressing that side that's down, you know, closest to the bed. If you raise your arm above your head, you're actually compressing your jugular vein on that side. So compressing your jugular vein is not new, it's not foreign. We're just creating a consistent compression so that, you know that blood just helps backfill slightly, but it doesn't change the way you feel. Sometimes athletes will say, you know, the first week or so that they're getting used to the device. They feel a heightened sense of clarity, they said this, and this is open up a little bit. They definitely feel more alert, they feel a little bit more clear headed. But there's there's no you know, biological changes that are negatively impacting your body. Regan Jones Okay, so a couple of other questions. Well, and one just small question, I assume that it's that jugular compression that makes the Q-Collar different than you know any other helmet or like a skullcap or any of the other, you know, things that are out there that are marketed as having an ability to, you know, protect the brain is that the main difference? That is the main difference. So we are the only device we are, like I said, at class to medical device, we are the only device on the market that has FDA clearance. And that shows it's safe. And it's actually protecting your brain. It's protecting your brain structure. I think there's a lot of confusion around you know, protecting your brain and protecting your skull. And we actually can protect you from the inside out. I have experience with some different things that I know go through FDA clearance in terms of medical devices. And without going into any needless detail about that the question that I have for you is I know with some things, there's been clinical trials that were done. So how was how was the Q-Collar validated for this FDA clearance? Suzanne Williams Yeah, great question, because a lot of people get confused by FDA clearance and FDA approval. So this is a class two medical device that's cleared by the FDA, they essentially mean the same thing. It's just that this is a class two device, which means it's low-risk. It's noninvasive, so it gets a clearance marker, high risk, invasive devices get approval, so think like a stent inside your heart, right? Those are higher risk devices. So this is a class two device which gets cleared. And that clearance process was really extensive. So the FDA got involved, took about five years for them to clear the device. They analyzed and looked at all of the clinical trials and the independent, peer reviewed and published studies that were done over 25 are done over a 10 year time span. And what they had to do in order to clear it is they had to prove that number one it was safe for you to wear, which it is and then number two, they had to prove that it was effective. It was actually doing what the claims were saying. And so one of the clinical trials that they really looked at the hardest was done out of the Cincinnati Children's Hospital. They found over 450 high school athletes, boys and girls, this is important because a lot of studies exclude females. As females add so many different variables to studies they can impact the outcome. So a lot of clinical trials will exclude women. The group that was doing this clinical trial was adamant that females had to be involved because of the high rate of TBI in women's soccer. They found soccer athletes, football athletes and ice hockey athletes. They MRI all their brains. So they got a baseline image of their brains. All the athletes were accelerometers. And this was done so they could assess the impacts the athletes were experiencing and the impacts they were giving so they could monitor. You know how hard how much G force their body was absorbing. And then half of those student athletes were giving Q-Collar and half or not, and they went out and played their entire seasons. And at the end of the year, they re MRI their brains and they looked at the changes in the white brain matter and 15:00 what they found were of the athletes that were wearing the Q-Collar 77% showed zero changes in their white brain matte…
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