Is One Glass of Wine Good for Your Heart?

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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: 0:32

Joining me live on the studio line. Right now, Dr. Michael Koren is with me. Doctor, how are you doing?

Dr. Koren: 0:37

Good morning, Kevin. I just want to make sure I didn't make that list.

Kevin Geddings: 0:41

Yeah, we like you so much. I've always said that if Dr. Koren Koren appears on the list, I will go over his name. I will gloss right over that.

Mike Stiles: 0:51

Criminal mischief, that's right, that's right.

Dr. Koren: 0:54

Yeah, I had a lovely dinner in St Augustine last night, but I avoided any arrests, so I feel pretty good about it. I did not drink, though, just to be clear.

Kevin Geddings: 1:04

So was the meal good. I mean, we're all about giving free advertising. Was it worth a shout-out, Dr. Koren?

Dr. Koren: 1:10

Yeah, I went to Michael's Tasting Room for Father's Day and it was lovely.

Kevin Geddings: 1:15

And they're known for their wines.

Dr. Koren: 1:19

Yeah, and I did not consume. I usually have a glass of wine with dinner, but last night I did not.

Kevin Geddings: 1:24

Yeah, D r. Michael Koren is with us live as he is on Monday mornings. He, of course, cardiologist, medical doctor, research scientist and also heads up the show at ENCORE Docs where they do leading-edge clinical research. Do we still believe that one glass of red wine at night is okay for our hearts?

Dr. Koren: 1:41

It is. It's actually something that's probably a healthy habit, believe it or not. When you look at life insurance tables, people that drink one to two drinks on average per day actually live longer than people that don't drink at all, and people that drink a little bit tend to have higher levels of HDL, which is the protective cholesterol molecule. So there is actually pretty good data suggesting that moderate drinking is something that's healthy and something that reduces heart disease. Very good.

Mike Stiles: 2:12

And what about buckets of fried chicken?

Dr. Koren: 2:16

Yeah, I would put that on the other list.

Mike Stiles: 2:18

Okay.

Dr. Koren: 2:19

All right, yeah, buckets of fried chicken are definitely not what we call cardiac friendly.

Kevin Geddings: 2:27

But the one thing I say, and I quote this to Fred.

Dr. Koren: 2:31

Actually, let me be clear about it.

Dr. Koren: 2:32

The bucket isn't the problem, it's the stuff in the bucket.

Kevin Geddings: 2:36

Oh, okay, Because the bucket smells pretty good just by itself.

Dr. Koren: 2:40

Yeah exactly Everybody can smell the bucket as much as they want.

Mike Stiles: 2:44

I tried to start a bucket of broccoli business. It didn't go well.

Dr. Koren: 2:47

No, that's not good.

Kevin Geddings: 2:50

Well.

Dr. Koren: 2:50

I understand there's a challenge, but there's probably a market for that. You just got to find the right market.

Kevin Geddings: 2:54

Yeah, D r. Koren. The other Michael that's on the line with us right now is Mike Stiles, and he and I have known each other since the eighth grade and he's done major market radio in atlanta and cincinnati and places like that so he's helping me press the buttons this morning.

Mike Stiles: 3:11

So that's, that's the other guy in the room.

Kevin Geddings: 3:12

Good morning and we're trying to outlive each other.

Mike Stiles: 3:14

So this is a particularly relevant conversation Dr. Koren. says I'm in great shape so uh go ahead competition is actually very valuable.

Dr. Koren: 3:23

It's a good thing to compete for.

Kevin Geddings: 3:26

Yeah, and that's indeed a little bit of what goes on, right, even in the area of clinical research, right, I would think. I mean not competition necessarily, but you all are constantly building on what your colleagues have done and, to be honest, probably trying to learn the next thing, right?

Dr. Koren: 3:40

Yeah, yeah, it's funny. Usually when you and I speak, Kevin, we have a little bit of a theme and I thought that our theme today would be whether or not ignorance is bliss sort of philosophical, and it's a cliche, and people say that, and I would argue that ignorance is only bliss until you're not ignorant anymore, and that can come at any point.

Dr. Koren: 4:05

So if you're walking around with the risk factors for heart disease and thinking, oh, ignorance is bliss, or you know, eating fried chicken every day, three meals a day, and thinking ignorance is bliss, well that changes pretty quickly. Once you have chest pain, you enter the emergency room and you need bypass surgery because you had a heart attack and you're at risk for further damage. So the problem with the old ignorance is bliss concept is that you never know when your ignorance ends and you have to deal with the problem. So I like the better cliche for me is knowledge is power. So if you have to choose between ignorance is bliss and knowledge is power, let's go with knowledge is power, which is what we do in research. We help people have medical knowledge that empowers them.

Kevin Geddings: 4:51

Absolutely. Dr. Michael Koren is with us, and if you'd like to learn how you can participate in clinical trials that are going on right here, locally in St John's County and St Augustine, go to EncoreDocs. com. That's EncoreDocs. com, and indeed, once you are a participant in clinical research as I have been with ENCORE Docs you're going to learn a lot and it's going to be an ongoing, often times a weekly experience where you are going to learn more and more about your current health status and about the issues that you're involved with right it is.

Dr. Koren: 5:21

It's a tremendous learning experience. We really have wonderful feedback saying that people have learned much more about their condition and feel really empowered to deal with the issues moving forward and sometimes their lifestyle. Sometimes it is just eating the fried chicken, sometimes it's genetics. There are people that can eat broccoli all their life and still have a bad cholesterol problem because of their genetics, and we'll help you figure that out and then if there's a clinical trial that's appropriate for you, we'll let you know about it.

Kevin Geddings: 5:50

Indeed, if there are listeners out there and so many are who are dealing with cardiovascular health issues, there are a variety of clinical trials they could participate in here, locally correct.

Dr. Koren: 6:00

There are quite a few and really exciting things. It's interesting. There are quite a few and really exciting things. It's interesting when I started as a cardiologist 30 plus years ago, we really didn't have drugs to lower cholesterol much more than maybe 20%, and now we have drugs that can lower your cholesterol up to 80%. So there's really been a tremendous paradigm change in what we're able to do and we find that the lower we get that LDL cholesterol, the better off you are.

Mike Stiles: 6:27

Yeah, well so, doctor, I actually happen to host a podcast for Oracle Life Sciences and it's all about clinical research and especially applying technology and data sharing to clinical research. Do you have a hard time recruiting participants, and do you have a hard time getting healthcare practitioners to encourage their patients to participate in things like this?

Dr. Koren: 6:54

That's a very complicated question but a really good one. Both questions are really good and we're fortunate we have a very large database of patients who have expressed interest in being part of clinical research and we access that database and tell our patients about the latest and greatest project and see if it's a good fit for them. So we have that advantage patients that are involved with that. Again, it's an educational process and letting people know what's available to them and telling them what the value proposition is for them and we can let them know about that as well.

Dr. Koren: 7:31

And then for doctors, some doctors are really good at clinical research and some are not so good. So I would say, of all physicians in the universe of physicians, about 10% are going to be the right type of person in terms of skill set, in terms of personality, in terms of interest, to become really good clinical research docs and not everybody needs to be that we have plenty of docs that just aren't that interested but they still refer patients, or docs that you know just are busy and you know rather not to focus on that. They may want to focus on other things. So, to answer your question, it's complicated but it's what we do and we help people understand the tremendous value for patients and also help doctors understand the fulfillment of being part of the scientific discovery process.

Kevin Geddings: 8:24

That's Dr. Michael Koren, once again with ENCORE Docs, and indeed you can participate. You know. My takeaway, too, from a lot of the time that we spend together, D r. Koren, is people need to take a little initiative, right If they're waiting for their physician to say, hey, there's perhaps a clinical trial you can participate in. You know, you don't need to wait for that.

Dr. Koren: 8:52

Yeah, and I think that's right. Again, getting back to the ignorance is bliss. If you don't ask questions when you have your interaction with your physicians, then you may learn about a problem very unexpectedly down the road. But you know, very happy to work with us. Our job is not to interfere with that relationship. We don't take any money from patients. We don't bill insurance for anything we do. We have external grants that cover everything. So there's really no financial conflict between what we do and what other physicians do. So usually it's a very friendly relationship between the research group and your primary care physician. But it really comes down to asking questions. So whether it's asking about your heart, asking about your risk factors for cardiovascular disease, asking about your liver and whether or not you have fatty liver disease, or asking about ways of protecting yourself with vaccines against viral illnesses or other GI problems that we work on and on and on Diabetes we're working on. Autoimmune disease like lupus we're working on. So it's a big laundry list of areas that we touch with all of our different physicians.

Kevin Geddings: 10:06

Yeah Well, once again, that's Dr. Michael Koren. And yes, you can participate in clinical research in all sorts of different areas, and you may also be eligible for some financial compensation for doing that, in addition to receiving some of the best health care you're ever going to get. Go to EncoreDocscom. com Before we let you go, Dr. Koren, and I'll give you that website one more time. Talk to us about another website that you're very involved with MedEvidence. com. What's that?

Dr. Koren: 10:30

Yeah, M edEvidence is our educational platform and it's a way for people to really understand what we call the truth behind the data. So, unfortunately, when you look things up online, typically Google is going to send you to a place where somebody has a financial interest in you buying something that's healthcare related. As I mentioned, we don't sell anything, we just provide information. So when you go to MedEvidence, there'll be a discussion, typically between two physicians, that just kind of socialize the issue. We talked about the pluses and minuses of using medical marijuana for insomnia, or we talked about ways of treating headaches, or we talked about ways of reducing your risk for heart disease or the latest and greatest in terms of fatty liver disease. And we're not selling anything, we're just sharing information and then patients can glean a lot of very valuable insights from that. So it's a great platform. We're getting really just tremendous feedback about it and people can see that it's unbiased and we're really in the business of education more than anything else.

Kevin Geddings: 11:38

Well, D r. Michael Koren, once again, ENCORE Docs. They have offices right here, really close to matter of fact, across the street from UF Flagler Hospital, off of 312 here in St. Augustine. Learn more by going to EncoreDocs. com. Encoredocs. com. Enter this phone number. You'll get to talk to a live human being who can ask you about your health status, what interest you may have in participating in leading edge clinical research, clinical trials. Just call this number 904-730-0166. 904-730-0166. Dr. K oren, thank you very much for all your time this morning. We'll speak with you again soon.

Dr. Koren: 12:16

Sounds great. Good talking to you both. Bye-bye.

Announcer: 12:18

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