A "Healthy Look" at Clinical Trial Participation

Transcript generated by AI

Announcer: 0:00

Welcome to the MedEvidence! Monday Minute radio show hosted by Kevin Geddings of WSOS St Augustine Radio and powered by ENCORE Research Group. Each Monday morning, Dr. Michael Koren calls in to bring you the latest medical updates with insightful discussions. MedEvidence! is where we help you navigate the real truth behind medical research, with both a clinical and research perspective. So sit back, relax and get ready to learn about the truth behind the data in medicine and healthcare. This is MedEvidence!

Kevin Geddings: 0:30

Dr. Michael Koren is with us. He is a medical doctor, cardiologist, research scientist, heads up the show at ENCORE Research Group They have offices right here in St. Augustine at the Whetstone Building near UF Flagler Hospital and they are, of course, conducting leading-edge clinical trials and medical research and we have the opportunity to participate right here locally and I think a lot of our listeners who are driving around and who have listened to you for a couple of years now, on Monday mornings typically feel like, well, I'm not sick.

Kevin Geddings: 0:57

I'm not suffering from diabetes or heart disease or something like that, and so I can't participate. But they would be wrong, wouldn't they?

Dr. Michael Koren: 1:06

Yeah, part of our process is to understand how certain things work. In "healthy people" or people that maybe have one small issue that is of particular scientific interest. So, for example, we're doing something right now where we're comparing the way a medication works, given once in somebody who's pretty much healthy, and we're comparing that with how that same medicine will work for people that have some problems with their kidneys. So, interestingly, the way these things work is that we do a matched control type experiment that's the technical term for it and really what that means is that if we find somebody that has kidney problems and we want to use this medication, we want to find somebody very similar to that person in terms of age and their body size, but without the kidney problem. And very specifically, right now we're looking at this really interesting new cholesterol drug that will have some of the similar impact of the injectable drugs Repatha and and Praluent, but it'll do that in a pill form and we're looking at how that is eliminated from the body in patients that have kidney disease.

Dr. Michael Koren: 2:24

And when I compare that directly with the same type of patient, that pretty much is fine. So, for example, if you are a healthy person and you're on a statin drug and you want to just see what it's like to be part of research with super low risk, in these cases, for these type of studies we typically compensate patients pretty nicely and people learn the process. So they learn a lot about the particular area that we're studying. They get a chance to interact with me and the others and get a lot of questions answered and we're often able to help people clear up whatever questions they have in medicine. And probably most interesting intellectually is they see how this whole process works.

Kevin Geddings: 3:11

Yeah, they get a sense of what clinical trials are all about and maybe lose some suspicions they may have or, better, have a little increased confidence in how medicines are brought to market, right, Absolutely.

Dr. Michael Koren: 3:24

And again, those are lessons will eventually get applied for most of us. And it's interesting, you know, when there's a doctor at the table, they'll typically ask me a lot of questions and it's my opportunity to kind of help them with some inaccurate preconceived notions. And people get that same sort of opportunity when they're involved in a research study Right. So, for example, we were having a discussion about statins last night and people are asking me well, do we want to replace statins? And the truth is that statins have an amazing track record.

Dr. Michael Koren: 3:59

We don't always hear that because the drugs are not being actively marketed anymore. They're just generic drugs and we forget how incredible these drugs were in terms of preventing heart attacks and strokes and really being an insurance policy for people. So with the study that we're doing right now, we look for people who are in a statin and we'll actually be doing a bunch of safety tests. So if there's any concerns about how the statin is interacting with your body, there's a great opportunity to get more clarity on that and also learn about the process of moving other medicines forward and how those medicines may interact with the drugs you're taking.

Kevin Geddings: 4:37

Well, once again, if you have any questions about participating in some leading edge medical research and once again you you have any questions about participating in some leading-edge medical research, and once again you can be perfectly healthy in doing that. There are all sorts of different opportunities and you can do it right here in St. John's County with our offices here in S t. Augustine. Go to EncoreDocs. com. That's spelled E-N-C-O-R-E EncoreDocs. com.

Kevin Geddings: 5:08

Speaking of getting good information, why don't we do a little plug, Dr. Koren, for the med evidence website? Med evidence. com

Dr. Michael Koren: 5:11

Yeah, that's our platform to discuss the truth behind the data and we run all of our educational sessions through that. There's some short format podcasts, maybe 10 minutes. There are others that we call a deep dive, where you can learn quite a bit about a specific area.

Dr. Michael Koren: 5:25

For example, Dr. Rothstein and I recently did a fascinating podcast on chronic lung disease and one of the things that comes up all the time is is that something that you may have that's been undiagnosed? This is particularly important to people who are smokers or former smokers. They may have some subtle effects of this, just like a cough that seems to be chronic. But when you go through our podcast you'll have a much better sense for whether or not you should be concerned. Number one. And number two if you're not sure, there's a process that you can go through to learn more about it and of course, that's where we do our screening for clinical research. So just to remind folks is that you may get the first lead on some medical issue through MedEvidence, but you can follow it up by giving us a call, coming in and having us do an evaluation to see whether or not one you're eligible for the research programs that we're doing, but perhaps more importantly, just get a better understanding of where you stand.

Kevin Geddings: 6:24

Well, once again go to the website MedEvidence. com, MedEvidence. com and participate in clinical trials and, perhaps you know, earn a little bit of an honorarium in the process you know, get compensated for your time. Go to encoredocs. com. Encoredocs. com. Or call the office here in St. John's County in St. Augustine at 904-730-0166. That number again. Punch it into your cell phone 904-730-0166. Dr. Koren, we hope you have a good St. Patrick's Day parade or wherever you're going. You're not going to a parade, but maybe a good St. Patrick's Day right.

Dr. Michael Koren: 7:01

All right, take care. Bye-bye.

Announcer: 7:02

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