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About Our Guest- Joel Cruzada – Why cryotherapy is such a powerful healing modality for the body
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Joel Cruzada is the Founder and President of CryoNext, category leader in the world of Whole Body Cryotherapy. He founded CryoNext in May of 2016, but has been involved in whole body cryotherapy since 2014. His company now offers one of the largest catalogs of wellness modalities and distributes across the United States with partners around the globe. Joel has 4 children. was born in the Philippines and moved to Chicago in 1976 before settling down in Orlando in 1991.
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Full Podcast Transcription
Joel Cruzada 00:00
We\’re seeing that calm down hashimotos and other things related to the thyroid because of what we\’re doing. We\’re like you said, training that system, allowing it to release those valuable hormones when we\’re put it into that fight or flight. And then all of a sudden before you know we\’re sort of jumpstarting what was dormant before.
Diva Nagula 00:38
Hello, everyone and welcome to another episode of From Doctor to Patient. Today, I have Joel Cruzada. With me, He is the founder and president of CryoNext, a category leader in the whole world of whole body biotherapy. He has four children. He\’s born in the Philippines, and moved to Chicago in 1976, and now resides in Orlando since 1991. He started cryonics in May of 2016, but started in whole body cryotherapy in 2014. Now, he offers the largest catalogue of wellness modalities and distributes across the country with partners around the globe. Joel, welcome. Thank you for being on the show today.
Joel Cruzada 01:21
Well, my pleasure, thank you so much for having me.
Diva Nagula 01:26
This is interesting times that we are facing these days. And I know there\’s just so much going on. And I just enjoy talking to people about various modalities that help the healing process of the human body. And I really want it before we get into discussions of cold thermogenesis and whole body cryotherapy. If you don\’t mind just talking to us a little bit about your company and what your company does and offers.
Joel Cruzada 02:00
Back when cryotherapy was was beginning in the US. I mean, it started maybe around maybe 15 years ago, cryotherapy came into the US the A cryotherapy unit, a whole body cryotherapy unit, you know, basically a chamber where liquid nitrogen is infused into the chamber, and an individual goes in there for from a minute and a half to three minutes with temperatures from negative 160 degrees Fahrenheit all the way up down to negative 300. At some point, you know, there was maybe one of three units back then, when we were coming in and maybe 50 locations across the country that actually had cryosaunas is what we call them. But back then it was trying to educate people, mainly, you know, in the medical world at that time, what these units were, or doing for individuals. And so I personally had to educate myself on what it was doing, you know, meet with the experts out there to teach me to teach us of what it was doing. I saw it as a business opportunity. I saw it as a way, you know, to wrap a business around it, not necessarily put it into an existing business, but actually create a business around it, I was also trained as a franchise consultant, my background is in brand marketing, design, all that stuff. And that\’s where, you know, I spent a lot of my life doing that. And so when I saw this cryosauna I\’m like, this is an opportunity to get this out to the masses, the engineers back then love to do what they did. And I love doing what I did. And so we\’ve sort of partnered up and started marketing this modality to whoever was interested. But like I said, in the beginning people were, were I had to educate people on what it actually did. And then as people started experiencing it for themselves, it was a no brainer, and it took off pretty fast back then we had to fly people, you know, to a location to just try the unit. Now it\’s everyone knows exactly what it does. And they\’re they\’re eager to jump in feet first to either a, bring it into their facility, existing business or be create a whole new business around it.
Diva Nagula 04:17
It\’s really quite interesting with this with this whole aspect of cryotherapy. And as you said before, it\’s been around for 15 years, but more and more areas and cities are offering cryotherapy through private companies or through just salons or spas and things of that nature. I don\’t know if it\’s been something that has been brought into the home residents at this time maybe Is that something that you foresee that\’s going to happen in the future?
Joel Cruzada 04:47
If we think outside the box of cryotherapy, the whole do it yourself wellness, where I see, we wake up to go into your bathroom and every modality you can think of is right there at your grasp from red light therapy to infrared, compression, oxygen, flotation, cryo therapy, if you can afford it, these are things that if you can have it inside a space in your room, then you know, that\’s that\’s what I see being accessible to people because people are conscious of their body, they\’re researching it, they\’ve got more time on their hands to actually research it and read up on what\’s going on within their body. And we call it biohacking, where people are starting to hack themselves from within. And you\’ll see, once once this is all said and done, when it starts to sort of stabilize, more and more people are going to be well versed in crowd therapy and all these other things as a means to you know, treat themselves. And if they can\’t buy for their homes, they\’re gonna search out the businesses out there that do have it.
Diva Nagula 06:01
It\’s interesting how we\’ve seen how this technology has advanced over the last 15 years. I mean, as a physician, we know the benefits of cold compression. In fact, there\’s a pneumonic that we use when we actually see a patient and treat the patient with an acute injury, specifically musculoskeletal injuries. So it\’s called the RICE method. So R is rest, I is ice, C is compression, and E is elevation. This is the standard that we how we educate and tell our patients to utilize this method when they go home to treat themselves, to treat an injury that they just suffered recently. And we know that and we\’ve always used ice and then as as technology has developed and as the benefits of cold thermogenesis has been well known. It\’s been used in other conditions in the medical field, like we know that patients who suffer from rheumatoid arthritis, they had these swollen joints and painful joints. And we\’re able to refer them to physical therapy or even tell the patients to go home and apply ice to those areas because it significantly reduces the pain and inflammation as caused by this autoimmune condition. And it\’s just taken to a different level now. So you talk to us is some of the benefits that you see or, you know, that\’s been published with in terms of cryo therapy and how its effectiveness is in our well being and on our bodies.
Joel Cruzada 07:37
Well, definitely, there\’s more published articles out there from various individuals that are are spearheading clinicals and stuff like that we are, like me personally, especially during these times, talking with doctors who want to work with us to create more articles like that, because, they\’re seeing what it can do on a personal level as well. One doctor came to me and had some pain in his hip that was chronic for a year, and after one treatment, and through the weekend, it started to basically dissipate, level out and he was amazed, you know, so we\’re starting to see more of those things, but you know, specific studies on on sports therapy or even mental health. There\’s stuff published in PubMed, you know, so you can see a lot of those things. Of course, we we say it may assist or it hasn\’t been seen, to assist in certain things, so we\’re talking overall inflammation, right, inflammation at the core, we\’re seeing it help, of course, with sports injuries, aesthetics, skin tightening, collagen restoration, and of course, anything like for the skin, we were talking psoriasis, eczema, things like that of that nature, we\’re taking cryotherapy, and we\’re honing in on a more local level as well. So people who can\’t go inside a system, they can experience the benefits on a local level. So when it comes to aesthetics for skin tightening, we\’re even seeing calorific burn. You know, these are things that that of course aren\’t published or aren\’t recorded, but we\’re seeing it on a personal level and we\’re sort of careful of what we say and do out there when it comes to this but the people that do come that experience this are the ones that tell us in person what they\’re experiencing and so our locations see that benefit they see it and they provide it and they\’re you know very excited to grow their business with these types of benefits but you can see online all the different things that it can do for you from helping you sleep as well, helping you calm, relaxed, stay focused, headaches, course any kind of muscular pain and arthritic conditions, autoimmune issues. Were seeing it assists in helping alleviate some of those pain that they experienced from it fibromyalgia and, and other things like that.
Diva Nagula 10:08
Yeah, it\’s amazing the array of conditions that it\’s applicable for. For me, what I find fascinating is how it is effective and how it kind of works. And on our system, I mean, when you go into a whole body cryo unit, your body is faced in conditions where the temperature is dropped to minus 200 degrees Fahrenheit in some cases. And what that does on a body, it\’s quite amazing, it shuts down a lot of our blood flow to our peripheral or our nervous system. And it preserves the core temperature. And it kind of invokes this sympathetic nervous system response or fight or flight. And to me would, it would, it kind of makes sense, that\’s how it works is that even though it elicits a fight or flight response, it almost responds in a way because it produces the same hormones. And then the hormetic response is the same. But it\’s interesting, because it trains our sympathetic nervous system to be more efficient. It\’s almost like working out rebuilding a muscle, you know, if you have a, if you\’re training your bicep muscle, and you start lifting weights in when you first start, it might be something very difficult to carry a load of 20 pounds. But after working out your bicep muscle over a period of time, it becomes a more efficient thing, because you\’re able to lift that 20 pounds with a lot less effort. And I like to use that analogy, because I think that\’s how the cryo works with the sympathetic nervous system. when your use sympathetic nervous system actually is elicited. It works and it automatically kicks in, but it works in a more efficient way so that you\’re not really working as hard. And to get into the sympathetic nervous system or fight or flight, it\’s quick, and then the response on the calm down when the fight or flight response or the trigger is alleviated, you return back to your normal state with ease. So I think that\’s it\’s interesting to me how, how effective that is, in terms of training, but as you said, it\’s like, if you\’re gonna use a tank is one to three minutes. And it\’s, I\’ve used it a couple times, and I know that it is quite, it can be quite cold and challenging to complete the three minutes.
Joel Cruzada 12:28
Yeah, you explained it soeloquently. You know, definitely once you publish this and upload it that that\’s what you explained is the simplest way to explain it, because you add the medical aspects of scientific aspects of the into the conversation, you know what I mean? And that\’s what you said, training, the sympathetic system, when people come in and ask, Is it going to, you know, am I going to continue to experience this pain relief? Am I going to continue to experience this, you know, sort of calorie burn, after this session, what you just said is perfect, right? It trains the sympathetic system ongoing. And if you do it multiple times, you have a schedule to do it, then now you\’re totally assisting that system.
Diva Nagula 13:13
Exactly. And the more you do it, we see the effects not only short term, but long term, in terms of like promoting like cell longevity, in promoting a overall reduction in inflammation because our flight or fight or flight response, isn\’t that tax because it\’s working in more efficient manner. So I really feel that that is a solution. And one of the solutions to really reduce chronic inflammation and thus, also reduces the chances ofhaving these chronic diseases like diabetes, autoimmune conditions, and even cancer.
Joel Cruzada 13:48
You tell me this now, one of the things that, you know, we do see stress, right, especially during these times, there\’s a lot of that going on, we were seeing a lot of thyroid issues, you know, as well, but then we\’re seeing that calm down; hashimotos and other things related to the thyroid, because of what we\’re doing. We\’re, like you said, training that system, right? We\’re allowing it to release those valuable hormones when we put it into that fight or flight. And then all of a sudden before you know it, we\’re sort of jumpstarting what was dormant before and not functioning properly. And then now we\’re seeing more issues like that start to be treated in individuals,
Diva Nagula 14:26
Right. And it\’s fascinating and I wish, I don\’t know what kind of research has been done in terms of levels of inflammation over a period of time with the utilization of cryotherapy, if there\’s been markers that have been drawn before and markers been drawn after, or even a measurement of heart rate variability if we see over time, if indeed that cryotherapy has any benefits, I would love to see that kind of research because that would really be a telltale as to the effectiveness of cold thermogenesis, or specifically whole body cryotherapy.
Joel Cruzada 14:56
That\’s specifically what we me personally I\’m studying is the HRV with this doctor and seeing what what kind of results we are, you know, the tests out there consists of maybe 25 individuals, we\’re looking for 100 plus to really see these numbers,
Diva Nagula 15:13
And what\’s your your research study entail, if you\’re able to share with us?
Joel Cruzada 15:19
Well, I\’m leaving it all to this doctor. He\’s based here in Orlando, but he\’s got, I guess, 120
preceptors? across the country.
Diva Nagula 15:30 Wow. Okay
Joel Cruzada 15:31
Yeah. And so that\’s going to be very exciting to see what that does. So I\’m letting him create the outline, and all those things, and then we\’ll review it together.
Diva Nagula 15:40
That\’s awesome. I\’m looking forward to seeing the results of this study. I\’m sure it\’s going to be positive. And no doubt what other products I know whole body cryotherapy is just one form of cryo. And I know there\’s some other units that you guys sell and that are available that are more for specific joints of the body, or portions of the body that can be utilized for cryo, instead of the whole body immersion. What other products are out there, just to explain to the folks out there, the variability in this utilization for different parts of the body.
Joel Cruzada 16:18
With CryoNext, we, of course, started with cryotherapy, and we\’re sales and distribution company with exclusive partnerships with various manufacturers to distribute and sell their equipment. And it doesn\’t stay with just cryotherapy. But we\’ve also started our own locations, tested locations, because we want to make sure we, we are able to showcase how these modalities work within a space. And we started with chiropractic, and then we went into a massage facility as well to see just exactly how these modalities treat their customers, patients, you know, so a lot of the stuff that we\’ve we focused on on the on the, say, like the chiropractic world is an integrative philosophy approach, where we have the patient in the center, and we surround them with, you know, wellness therapies, cryotherapy, I always say you can\’t survive out cryotherapy alone as a business you\’ve got to be, you have got to create a turnkey logical system that addresses you know, different things for different individuals, right, because everyone\’s so unique. So cryotherapy is one, when I started this, we, we had an idea of creating multiple pods, and harnessing all of these natural elements into different pods. And cold therapy was one pod. floatation therapy, you know, with saltwater in another pod, a second pod could be red light therapy, with LED, and then another pod could be a salt room. And then and then so forth, and so on. And infrared, sauna, even, compression, vibration, and, of course, hyperbaric with oxygen. So all these elements, we\’re harnessing in, into various pods, or various rooms, or various treatment areas that make sense. So, you know, they\’re not doing everything all at once, of course, but we can rotate them around the circuit, that that addresses various things in our body. And like I said, train the sympathetic system. And bounce from one modality to the next. And so those are some of the elements that we have, of course, modalities. And then they\’re, they\’re all packaged up in various modules, modalities, and from handheld units to, you know, compression units, like, leg compression, arm compressions and things like that, to whole body treatment systems when, when it comes to crowd therapy, of course, when it comes to float, when it comes to red light, and infrared. And then, you know, like I said, targeted systems that we can focus on specific areas.
Diva Nagula 18:58
That\’s fantastic. So you\’ve got a whole array of products. And then you promote these to people. I guess, when you have a client or someone that wants to open up the center, you probably will see this individual or company house more of these types of modalities, and under one roof, so that a person or a client that comes in there, they\’re able to pick depending on their specific ailment, which array of modalities to use, or to or to expose themselves in a specific time period.
Joel Cruzada 19:31
Yeah. When they one of the things that we do as CryoNext is we sit down and educate the consumer in the beginning and then ongoing, you know, we provide educational training, so that they can understand and they can get ongoing information on how these things, you know, help the individual so that they too are talking like experts to the individual and those questions do arise and then if they have anything, any questions that they can\’t answer, of course, we\’re always there to support them. But aren\’t you focuses on education and training ongoing. Why this all makes sense? Well, we see everything come across our table. And so far so good. You know, we\’re addressing everything and people are seeing the relief that they came into their business.
Diva Nagula 20:14
That\’s awesome. Now, I know like over I think it was maybe before the football season started last year, or maybe it was a year before that I can\’t remember timeframe. But there was an issue where a professional NFL player, initials AB, had an issue where he had frostbite as a result of going into a Cryo Chamber. And I don\’t know the details of this, maybe since you\’re in the industry, you might be able to educate as to what he did wrong, because I\’m sure that was the issue.
Joel Cruzada 21:44
Sure. With with cryotherapy now there is a growth of electric units right that don\’t use liquid nitrogen. And those are the types of units like when you ask me whether or not they\’re going to be in homes or not, those are what I see being in homes because it\’s much easier to plug and play, you know and operate you don\’t need to roll in liquid nitrogen into space to do that. What what happened in this situation, and we don\’t know whether or not it was true or not, but it will happen people will have gotten burned from extreme cold but it\’s not necessarily the the frigid temperatures, I mean, we can control it doesn\’t drop below that. That mark of freezing the skin, it\’s it\’s liquid nitrogen, I don\’t know if you also know but liquid nitrogen itself won\’t burn you we create the heat on our bodies so that when liquid nitrogen drops onto our skin a sort of like layer happens moisture between our skin and that liquid nitrogen to bead off to roll off the body. Okay? It\’s not, but when that liquid nitrogen gets soaked up into a piece of fabric, let\’s like say slipper socks, then the fabric then encapsulates that liquid nitrogen and freezes the fabric and then it\’s the fabric that then burns the skin.
Diva Nagula 23:13
I say, so the affect of the liquid nitrogen, but it\’s the fabric, I see.
Joel Cruzada 23:18
I don\’t know if you\’ve seen those, those scientists out there they go crazy and they pour liquid nitrogen over their hands. They\’ve even and I\’m not even gonna mention it because people are gonna, you know, I don\’t want people to try it but it doesn\’t burn you. It\’s fairly safe in that regard. But it\’s when, if he may have gone in with slippers and socks that were wet because that\’s another thing if it\’s if there\’s moisture in it from previous usage or his own sweat wets the material that can get frozen in these sub freezing temperatures, and then could then burn his skin. So like I said, it\’s not the unit that burns the individual. It\’s not the liquid nitrogen that burns the individual. It\’s what they\’re wearing, first and foremost,
Diva Nagula 24:05
Right. So some of these places that I\’ve been to the cryo tank specifically, they make you wear like a set of gloves to cover your hands and like these thick socks that cover your feet. I mean, they\’re not wet, but what is the standard of care when you are entering a tank like this.
Joel Cruzada 24:27
So standard of care, of course, is trying to protect those, the hands and the feet because as you know, the skin in those in those parts of your body are much thinner. And the idea is that during this the sympathetic system is triggered and fight or flight and so the blood from the peripheral tissues pulled away from the extremities to preserve the core, right the organs the vital organs and so once that blood leaves those areas, it\’s then vulnerable. To the cold because there\’s nothing to warm it. And so we want to initially protect those areas. So gloves socks, for men underwear. And in pretty much slipper socks. And that\’s it, you know. So they go in and they get they get they go into the system with this extreme cold temperature now in Europe where this all began. A lot of times they don\’t even wear a lot of that, you know, they
go in without these materials and then they come out but they do continue to protect those you know, hands and feet.
Diva Nagula 25:38
And for the listeners? Are there any contraindications as to when a cryotherapy shouldn\’t be
utilized?
Joel Cruzada 25:48
Of course, yeah. Any any heart issues high blood pressure, Raynaud\’s disease, pregnancy, of course, cancer, in beginning diabetes, as well. And there were there was a slew of others. I\’m leaning, you know more on research as we move along to continue furthering what is what is a contraindication? But those are the main ones right there.
Diva Nagula 26:11
Right. Okay. I appreciate you letting us know, there\’s contraindications. And it\’s really
important. Not everyone is a candidate for cryotherapy or cold thermogenesis.
Joel Cruzada 26:22
Yeah, some of the things, I mean, people can be allergic to cold. So I\’ve seen people skin with hives after cold experience like this, anxiety disorders, you know, where I\’ve seen someone just inside in this sub freezing temperatures, where they\’re sweating. And we\’ve had to stop a session because of that, you know, that makes sense. Yeah. So it\’s like, okay, you\’re not handling this well. So let\’s stop that. And those, those are things we have to continue to add and research and see, you know, what it what it does to individuals like that,
Diva Nagula 27:01
Right. And to maximize the benefit, I know that people are encouraged to do the full three minutes. But if people are only able to do 30 seconds to a minute, are they still able to receive the benefits of cold immersion therapy?
Joel Cruzada 27:16
Yeah, the numbers still vary around there, but minute and a half. If you can withstand the the temperature of negative 160, I would say negative 166, is what I\’ve seen published out there as well, negative 166 Fahrenheit for a 1 minute 30 seconds, then you\’ve created what we call thermal shock. Got it? Okay, so long as you can do that, then great. And most individuals, we start them at negative 180. So we already know that they\’re going to experience that negative 180. It literally just tricks your system. And you don\’t feel that because it just you know, hits the surface, you don\’t feel it in your core like you do when you do an ice plunge or an ice bath. Right? You don\’t you don\’t jump in and and the cold therapy doesn\’t penetrate through to your organs. It\’s just skin. So it\’s fairly comfortable. The experience that people tell us and talk to us about after the you know the session. Got it.
Diva Nagula 28:19
And if our listeners want to find out more information about you or your company, where can
they look on online?
Joel Cruzada 28:25
We\’re on CryoNext.tech And we\’ve got various Facebook groups out there from our own business network group, in the crypto world to our location where we house all our equipment. We run demos and sessions there and training. We call it the CryoNext Labs where we have all of our equipment and we invite people to come in to see that that are local or have visited here, we do promote a annual event. We\’ve done our second one called The Human Optimization Event where we showcase all of our modalities. We invite individuals from the sports world, we actually do it during the Pro Bowl season. Hopefully next year, we have a Pro Bowl. I hope we have a season. I\’d love to see that AB gentlemen play in Tampa. So it\’ll be fun. But yeah, human optimization that is our focus, our goal, to get these modalities out there to the masses to get into the right hands to do it right and continue to grow this.
Diva Nagula 29:31
Awesome. I appreciate all the work that you\’re doing on the research front. We just need more people like yourself and more studies, so we can really identify the benefits of cryotherapy and cold body thermogenesis. Joe, I appreciate you coming on the show today. And please be safe out there. Thanks again!
Joel Cruzada 29:53
Be safe. That\’s the word of the week. So you take care too and thank you so much.
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