Discovering Hidden Health Concerns Through Clinical Trials

Transcript Generated by AI.

Announcer: 0:00

Welcome to the MedEvidence Monday Minute Radio Show hosted by Kevin Geddngs of WSOS St Augustine Radio. 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: 0:28

We're spending time with Dr. Michael Koren. Of course he heads up the show at ENCORE Research Group and they of course are involved with leading-edge clinical trials, medical research,  and all sorts of clinical trials going on. Regardless of what issue you may be facing, you probably can participate in a trial, right doctor.

Dr. Michael Koren: 0:57

Yeah, we have some really fabulous stuff going on as we speak in a number of different areas in cardiovascular prevention, in liver disease, vaccine work. So quite a few things going on .

Kevin Geddings: 1:13

Yeah, a lot of times people will ask you you know how you doing, and of course it becomes just an automatic, you know, kind of trash phrase. You just say I'm doing fine, doing fine. But if you want to get a little more elaborate, right, then we can get into some fun details, correct?

Dr. Michael Koren: 1:26

Yeah, yeah, we were just chatting about that. I rediscovered the term cuckoo-cachoo over the weekend. It's funny, it's a little before my time, but in the 60s that meant everything is going okay. So somebody asked you how are you doing? You'd say cuckoo, cuckoo, choo, and I think there was like a little bite to it. It was a little ironic because these are younger people who had the choice of maybe going to college versus going to the Vietnam War, and some of them would answer the question cuckoo cuckoo, knowing that they were fortunate enough to be doing okay and not fighting in the jungle.

Dr. Michael Koren: 2:00

But there were a few songs back in the era that highlighted that. Right, but there are a few songs back in the era that highlighted that. One was the Grammy Award winning Mrs. Robinson, and the other one is one of the next five years. We're going to bring that back in.

Kevin Geddings: 2:13

I was trying a few years ago to bring back into the culture the term jive. You know you're talking jive right now, ie you know it's BS Hasn't really taken hold. You say every once in a while A lot of folks that are listening to us may say well, you know what, Dr. Koren, I don't have any particular challenges that I know of right now, so why would I want to participate in leading edge medical clinical trials?

Dr. Michael Koren: 2:52

Well, you may not know about your challenges unless you check it out.

Dr. Michael Koren: 2:55

Right the first answer to that question.

Dr. Michael Koren: 2:57

But that's where Cuckoo Cuckoo Chew comes in. So let's say that you do have some fatty liver disease, which is very common, by the way. You won't know it until you get a fiber scan, we'll provide, free of charge, as part of an evaluation. We look at your liver, we see if there is any accumulation of fat or, even worse, is there, is there a scarring called fibrosis or even cirrhosis, where liver function is severely impaired, and you wouldn't necessarily know that. But maybe it's just fat in the liver and you say, hey, kooka koo, do I can do a clinical trial and we'll we'll deal with this issue, or I can get involved in a weight loss program, we can deal with this issue.

Dr. Michael Koren: 3:34

So, um, you know, sometimes you discover things that may not be optimal, but there may be a solution for you. So cuckoo ca-choo.

Kevin Geddings: 3:42

Yeah, and I know from participating in clinical trials myself ENCORE Research Group. You know you're going to get a very thorough health examination, they're going to monitor your health regularly and there's some peace of mind knowing that, OK, you really are OK, Right. And a lot of times we don't really stay on top of that. Last month I had the privilege of being on stage with Dr. Koren up in Jacksonville and there were folks in the back of the room that were testing people for, like cholesterol levels for example, and I was overhearing some of the folks that were having their little fingers pricked and they were talking about how they hadn't had this kind of test done in years. Had this kind of test done in years?

Kevin Geddings: 4:15

Not everybody has an annual physical, correct?

Dr. Michael Koren: 4:20

No, that's right. There's a lot of things that we can offer people once they get involved in the clinical trial process. Of course, we talk a lot about vaccines. We talked about that at our meeting at WJCT and it's another example. Even though we are coming out of the back end of this horrible pandemic and we know that there's still a lot of dangerous viruses out there, like RSV and influenza and COVID, we can get vaccines and protect ourselves.

Kevin Geddings: 4:42

So cuckoo ca-choo yeah cuckoo ca-choo, before we let Dr. Koren go back to driving. What about MedEvidence? That's a great resource, isn't it? Doc? For our listeners.

Dr. Michael Koren: 4:53

It is. That's our platform, where people can find the truth behind the data. That's our tagline and really what that means is that there's stuff that we know very well, established medical facts. There's a lot of stuff that we don't know and there's ways that we learn about the stuff that we don't know. So MedEvidence helps people understand those elements to any medical issue and then talks about how we learn more about what we don't know, and, of course, that lends itself to clinical trials. But more broadly, MedEvidence is really giving a lot of traction to help people just understand issues. Just being honest about what you don't know is so important and unfortunately, when you look at medical information online, people don't always say what they don't know. So we like to help people understand all those elements again, what we always say, what they don't know. So we like to help people understand all those elements Again what we know, what we don't know and how we're going to learn about the stuff we don't know.

Kevin Geddings: 5:43

Well, it's such a trustworthy website as opposed to just what you're going to find on Google and Facebook. You know, this is something that's actually carefully reviewed and nothing is on there that you can't trust. So go to medevidence.com. Medevidence. com, Dr. Michael Koren. Thank you very much for joining us this morning. We hope you're safe out there.

Dr. Michael Koren: 6:02

Always a pleasure.

Announcer: 6:03

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