Trusting Your Instincts in Health Decisions

Transcript Generated by AI

Announcer: 0:00

Welcome to the MedEvidence Monday Minute Radio Show hosted by Kevin Geddings of WSOS S.t 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: 0:31

Dr. Michael Koren joining us live on the studio line right now.

Kevin Geddings: 0:34

Good morning, Dr Koren. How are you?

Dr. Michael Koren: 0:36

Good morning, I'm doing well, thank you.

Kevin Geddings: 0:38

Yes, Dr. Koren, of course. Medical doctor, cardiologist, research scientist. He also heads up the show at ENCORE Research Group. Coming off of the hurricanes that we've had over the last couple of weeks, it's kind of given us a little bit of thought as to following government instructions, right evacuation orders and the like, right, Dr. Koren?

Dr. Michael Koren: 0:55

Yeah, yeah, first of all did you do okay personally, you and your family were okay, not a lot of damage.

Kevin Geddings: 1:01

Yeah, yeah, I think we lost power for 20 minutes. Very lucky, very, very fortunate. And I feel badly sometimes when you hear folks who have lost power. There's some people in Flagler County still without power and your worst story you can share with them is yeah, I lost Wi-Fi for four minutes.

Dr. Michael Koren: 1:18

I'm glad to hear that it wasn't bad for you.

Kevin Geddings: 1:20

And you're okay too right.

Dr. Michael Koren: 1:22

Yeah, we've done fine. Obviously, we have our research site locations around the state of Florida, so there was a lot of concern. In fact, we have one site in Crystal River, right near the Gulf of Mexico, and the original forecast was that the hurricane would go right through there. It did shift south from there, so fortunately, our site in Crystal River wasn't damaged severely and didn't even lose power for that long. So we were lucky.

Dr. Michael Koren: 1:50

But yeah, you mentioned about following government regulations. I have a funny little story, which is that my primary home is in St. John's County and those of the people that are listening to this probably are living in St. John's County and know that St. John's County asks for a lot of people to evacuate if you're in certain flood zones on Tuesday morning, which was a solid 48 hours before the storm was going to be coming through. And the irony is that I have a small beach cottage in Duval County, and if I had followed the government instructions, I would have left my pretty safe home in St. John's County to go to my beach house right near the ocean, where I'd probably be much more vulnerable. And it gets into this whole idea about when do you listen to government recommendations or regulations and when do you make your own decision? And of course that's relevant for taking vaccines and how we prepare for the cold and flu season.

Kevin Geddings: 2:47

Yeah, no, absolutely, Because folks don't know what to believe. They hear from federal authorities that they should get the COVID booster. Then they hear from the Surgeon General in the state of Florida that they should not. So I mean, how do people go about making those determinations when you have conflicting advice from government entities?

Dr. Michael Koren: 3:04

Well, we try to help people with the MedEvidence platform and website and, as I think you've mentioned, we're doing a program with WOKV this Friday which will be an in-person program at the studio. Anybody listening can give us a call. There's not that many tickets left, but if you say that you heard about it from us, Kevin, through this radio broadcast, then I think we'll make you a priority to get in. But really, what we're going to talk about is exactly that point, which is that at the end of the day, people need to make decisions based on their own circumstances, and the government just doesn't know what those circumstances are. They can give us advice, and it's well-meaning advice.

Dr. Michael Koren: 3:44

Circumstances are, you know, they can give us advice, and it's well-meaning advice. They're certainly looking out for the public and the population, but they can never know the details of individuals. So, for example, in general, COVID vaccines or flu vaccines are recommended for people who are at high risk. Well, how do you define high risk? And the only way you would know that is by having a more detailed discussion with medical professional or getting involved in a clinical trial where we'll have specific inclusion exclusion criteria. They'll be relevant to your particular circumstance.

Dr. Michael Koren: 4:14

So, for example, if you're a 20-year-old, healthy male or female, it may not be the right thing to do because your risk is pretty low, unless you have a transmission risk to somebody who is vulnerable, a grandparent, for example. So these are the kind of thinking that should go into making decisions. The other thing that's particularly interesting for a lot of people is when you go into cold and flu season. You won't know what virus you're going to get if you get sick. It could be COVID, it could be influenza, it could be parainfluenza, it could be respiratory syncytial virus or RSV. So does that knowledge make a difference?

Dr. Michael Koren: 4:52

And you want to be in a circumstance where you can learn what virus you have. So we know, for example, that COVID can be treated with a medication in addition to being prevented with a vaccine, but that's not necessarily true for RSV. So these are the kind of decisions that we all need to make and we basically need to have a plan going into the cold and flu season and how we're going to deal with that, and our research programs help people develop that plan. Yeah, absolutely.

Kevin Geddings: 5:19

Well, once again, you can learn more and the MedEvidence platform is wonderful. It's a great resource. It doesn't cost you anything and, unlike whatever you're going to find on Google or Facebook or TikTok, it's something you can actually believe in. MedEvidence. com, medevidence.com, and people can believe in that platform. Right, because it is fact-based, right, doctor?

Dr. Michael Koren: 5:39

It is. We're totally fact-based and what we explain to people is there are certain things we know for sure. There are certain things we definitely don't know, and then there's a process to learn about the things that we don't know, and that's what research is about. We help learn about new things and, along the way, we help people who participate in that through a lot of education and through insights based on each individual.

Kevin Geddings: 6:01

Yeah, yeah, and that way you can learn and make good decisions, regardless of what inputs you're getting from you know, government entities or family members or whatever you know. It can be challenging to process what can be a blizzard of information coming at you, all at the same time, dealing with some of the same topics.

Announcer: 7:34

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