Avoiding Norovirus During the Holidays

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 joins us usually around this time on Monday mornings. Pretty exciting stuff. Some research, of course, always going on here at the ENCORE Research offices, next door to UF Flagler Hospital and the Whetstone Building on 312. And indeed research dealing with norovirus, which we typically associate with cruise ships, right, Dr. Koren?

Dr. Michael Koren: 0:52

That is true. Norovirus is the old Norwalk virus.

Dr. Michael Koren: 0:58

When I was in medical school that's what we used to call it and it turns out that it's not just from cruise ships that one can suffer from really horrible GI consequences of severe nausea and explosive diarrhea and vomiting. So it's one of those things that could absolutely ruin your holiday season, and you don't have to be in a cruise ship to get it. In fact, there's been many cases proven that it could be transmitted in restaurants. It's highly communicable and once one person in the family gets it, pretty much everybody's going to get it. So it's one of those things where you can also do your relatives and your loved ones and other people in your close-knit circle a good deed by preventing this disease from spreading.

Kevin Geddings: 1:43

Yeah, I had no idea you could actually get vaccinated against this.

Dr. Michael Koren: 1:48

You can - well, at least you can get an investigational vaccine for it, I should say. And it's interesting, but it is a virus, and if it's a virus, that means you can prepare your immune system to fight it off before it infects you. And it's interesting. We just did a podcast on this. I did this with Dr. Victoria Helow and this dropped from our MedEvidence website this past week, and there's a lot of really, really interesting things that we talked about. Among them is the fact that there have been case studies where one person in a restaurant had the virus. They vomited and actually the spray of the vomit infected the majority of the people in the restaurant, and the closer you were to the area of vomiting, the more likely you were to get the disease. So it's a really, really interesting thing that it does spread through the air, even though it affects your GI tract.

Kevin Geddings: 2:39

Wow yeah, because a lot of folks I guess, as laymen, I would think that's something that's associated with being transferred with food but if you were trying to help, you know somebody else who was really sick. You could basically get yourself sick as well by just being in their presence.

Dr. Michael Koren: 2:54

Exactly. Yeah, it's one of those very interesting roots of transmission and it makes the point that viruses are different. They don't all spread exactly the same way. The other interesting piece about this virus is the fact that hand sanitizers don't work. Only good old soap and water and friction is what gets rid of it, and the reason for that is because the way the virus is structured, it doesn't have an actual envelope around it, which is what the usual antiseptics use to break down viruses.

Dr. Michael Koren: 3:27

So alcoholic based hand sanitizers, for example, break down the envelope of a virus and that makes it inactive, whereas a norovirus doesn't have that type of envelope

Kevin Geddings: 3:37

So, uh, if you're on a cruise ship and they're constantly wanting to spray your hands before you go in to eat at the massive buffet, you ever say, hey guys, this really isn't doing any good

Dr. Michael Koren: 3:47

Exactly, and that's exactly the practical take-home. You need to use soap and water to prevent this virus from spreading

Kevin Geddings: 3:54

So, folks listening, if they're obviously going to be in yet another family gathering, which a lot of of folks will be as we head into Christmas here in a couple of weeks, or they are going to be taking a cruise or something in the next couple of months, or the next couple of weeks even, they should consider participating in this study and getting this vaccine right.

Dr. Michael Koren: 4:12

Absolutely. It'll be a great learning experience. Just by being in the study will make you more cautious about these things and hopefully keep you out of harm's way. But we also have a product that hopefully will help you avoid getting this really nasty illness.

Kevin Geddings: 4:27

Yeah, yeah. And, of course, once you are engaged and enrolled in a study like this for norovirus or any of the other various issues that are out there, you're going to also get the added benefit of some of the best health care you're ever going to have, because people are going to be tracking your health very closely and you're going to have health care professionals who are going to listen to you about not only how this vaccine may be impacting you which is all good stuff but all your other health issues as well. Correct?

Dr. Michael Koren: 4:54

Absolutely no doubt. And in this case there's a nice little stipend for patients who participate and keep track of their symptoms. Obviously, when we do these kind of programs we want to make sure people don't get sick. If they do get sick, we want to see if they actually have norovirus. So for those reasons we do compensate patients. So that's a little extra money for Christmas gifts.

Kevin Geddings: 5:13

Yeah, before I let you go, you mentioned the MedEvidence platform, where there was some good information about the norovirus we were just talking about, but briefly explain to our listeners why they should check it out. For a whole host of reasons. Dr. Koren

Dr. Michael Koren: 5:28

We have hundreds of podcasts and educational material on the website and it's a great way to understand the truth behind the data. So people will throw out a lot of information, but they don't always help you with the context, which is so important, and context means how does this information affect you and your family? So we talk about what we know about some medical issue, what we don't know about a medical issue and how we learn about the stuff that we don't know. So again, I think there's really nothing quite like it. I've looked around quite a bit and I don't think there's any place else where doctors talk very, very honestly about different health care areas. Again, we're not trying to sell any particular product, we're just trying to sell the way to understand medical issues. So hopefully you'll join the growing number of people who have given me this incredibly positive feedback about this website and about this educational experience.

Kevin Geddings: 6:22

It's a great website. So often people come away from Google and they feel like they're not getting good information. Dr. Google really can't be trusted, but you can trust the information you're going to find at medevidence. com. Medevidence. com the truth behind all the data that's out there. Go there first, medevidence. com. If you know someone in your circle of friends, family, who are researching health information for whatever reason, make sure they know about MedEvidence. com. Dr. Koren, thank you very much for joining us this morning. Be safe out there traveling okay.

Dr. Michael Koren: 6:53

My pleasure, Kevin, have a great week.

Announcer: 6:55

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