Medical Devices: Beyond Pills and Vaccines

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, of course medical doctor, cardiologist, also research scientist and he heads up the show with ENCORE Research Group. He's local, right here in our part of Northeast ENCORE Research Group, with offices next door to UF Flagler Hospital in the Whetstone building, where they are recruiting for all kinds of leading clinical trials. Leading edge clinical trials. We're going to talk about one of those in just a second, but we wanted to talk this morning about the topic of medical products. A lot of times we're talking about pills and vaccines and things that you can take, but there's some progress being made with just medical products, right?

Dr. Michael Koren: 1:04

Yeah, it's a very interesting, subtle but constant change in the direction of medicine, and what I mean by that is we're always looking for different ways of innovating, and for many years those innovations were mostly pills or vaccines, as you point out, but more and more we're seeing this approach to treating medical problems that looks at procedures for quote more permanent results. So, for example, right now we're doing a really, really interesting study for people with, let's say, diabetes or people who are overweight or who have both problems, and what we're doing is we're asking people first to take some medication to control their weight, Semaglutide as or Ozempic Mounjaro that that type of medicine and then to try to maintain long-term results, we're then inviting them to have a procedure where part of their small intestine is ablated. I. e. that means that what we're doing is reducing the ability of those cells to absorb certain nutrients. That would lead to weight gain and to increases in blood sugar levels. So it's an interesting way of taking something that we know works short term, for example, the use of these drugs and sustaining it over a longer term, so that perhaps someday people can come off the drugs and still have a sustained response over a longer period of time. So we're, as we speak, recruiting for that study and if people are interested in this concept, please give us a call.

Dr. Michael Koren: 2:39

But again, this is part of a larger trend of doing more and more things that are looking at procedures. We do procedures, for example, in the heart-calf lab, where we put in new types of stents or new types of devices that can help the heart muscle get stronger. We've been certainly involved in things that, for example, use a pacemaker to pace the carotid sinus, which helps lower blood pressure and may make the heart stronger, through a device that can be programmed and used based on one's blood pressure and one's needs in terms of their heart muscle function. And we also do using devices that use different type of computer algorithms to help people decide when to take diuretics or when to take other medications. So there's a fascinating new area for medicine, which is not just pills or vaccines.

Kevin Geddings: 3:34

Yeah, your opportunity out there, if you're listening to us right now, to participate in some leading-edge clinical research, medical research, and not get involved with necessarily vaccines or taking pills, but even a wearable device, something as simple as a like, might be similar to your Apple watch, right?

Dr. Michael Koren: 3:52

Exactly Well, the Apple watch is one example of a group that we work with in terms of determining whether or not these watches are good at detecting atrial fibrillation. We've also worked with Samsung on that, so a lot of really, really interesting technologies. But the main point that I think everybody should take home with is that there's ways of treating things other than drugs and vaccines, and if you're interested in that, give us a call and we'll see if we have a program that fits your needs.

Kevin Geddings: 4:20

Well, once again, that phone number here locally in Northeast Florida, including here in St Augustine and St Johns County 904-730-0166 for Encore Docs, 904-730-0166. And odds are you'll be going to their offices right there at the Whetstone building at UF Flagler hospital. We've got a great team there, very relaxed environment. I've participated in some of these trials. Karen on our team has as well. It's a it's a fun experience and you actually feel like you're, you know, making a contribution to society and get a little compensation in the process. So it's all good, go to EncoreDocs. com, encoredocs. com. Before we let you go, Dr. Koren, how about a little shout out for MedEvidence, and if people are looking for blank, they should check out MedEvidencecom right.

Dr. Michael Koren: 5:07

Absolutely Everybody should check out MedEvidence. com. I think you'll get a laugh out of this. So there's been a lot of talk about AI and you and I have talked about it. A lot of it is hype, but some of it's interesting and we'll find out where AI fits into medicine over the long run. But we asked an AI bot to give us a testimonial about med evidence and the AI bot said that it used to Google its symptoms and was always constantly worried that they had this, that or the other illness. Now they use MedEvidence and they sleep better at night.

Kevin Geddings: 5:41

That's awesome. That ought to be like turned into like a TV commercial. That's amazing.

Dr. Michael Koren: 5:47

This is what AI said about MedEvidence. So we have a very strong testimonial from AI about how wonderful MedEvidence is, so check it out.

Kevin Geddings: 5:56

That's awesome. That is funny. Oh man, All right. Well, Dr. Koren, we always appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to be with us on Monday mornings. We hope you have a good week and stay safe out there, okay.

Dr. Michael Koren: 6:07

Same to you, good talking to you.

Announcer: 6:09

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