New Advancements in Cholesterol Treatments

Narrator: 0:00

Welcome to the MedEvidence Monday Minute Radio Show hosted by Kevin Gettings 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 health care. This is MedEvidence.

Kevin Geddings: 0:30

For some reason, that song always comes into my head around Groundhog Day, Dr. Koren, because that's what Bill Murray was chasing down in that movie, right, wasn't it a Groundhog?

Dr. Michael Koren: 0:39

Yeah, yeah, it's funny. Now you reminded me, that's right.

Kevin Geddings: 0:46

Yeah, Caddyshack, of course the movie we're talking about and, yes, the restaurant bar.

Dr. Michael Koren: 0:52

Sorry, Kevin, I'm really behind, but did the Groundhog see his or her shadow this year or not?

Kevin Geddings: 0:56

Whatever it does, that gives us that highly scientific forecast of a shorter winter is what happened? Does he see his shadow? Not see his shadow? I don't know. It's kind of ridiculous.

Dr. Michael Koren: 1:09

OK, well, I miss that on my newsfeed.

Kevin Geddings: 1:12

Yeah, in South Carolina they do the same thing with opossum, but it doesn't get nearly the national attention.

Dr. Michael Koren: 1:20

All right. Well, I'm all for a short winter.

Kevin Geddings: 1:22

Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Michael Koren: 1:23

I am too.

Kevin Geddings: 1:23

Dr. Michael Koren is here with us and of course he is a medical doctor, a researcher and of course cardiologist. Also helps lead the effort at ENCORE Research Group. They're providing leading edge medical research that you can participate in, clinical trials, that sort of thing. He also is very involved in getting good information out through the website MedEvidence. com. MedEvidence. com, and indeed you've made an international impact recently by being published in The LANCET which I believe comes out of the UK. It's a medical journal.

Dr. Michael Koren: 1:56

It is. Thank you for mentioning that. Yes, The LANCET is the most prestigious medical journal in Europe and fortunately they chose to publish an article that I wrote and we're very excited about it and it's an article about a new cholesterol drug that you can take by mouth, an oral pill that works just as well as the injectable drugs like Rapatha. So we were very excited to be part of that research and I was very excited to be asked to be the first author on this paper.

Kevin Geddings: 2:27

Yeah, and if you're dealing with cholesterol issues and maybe have had a lack of success taking just Lipitor or some other basic statin, you may want to learn more about it. We're going to put a link actually to that very article that our own Dr. Koren wrote. We'll get that up on Facebook at some point during the day today. So I have to ask number one how long was the article? Like, how How many words?

Dr. Michael Koren: 2:49

Well, the way we look at it is the words in the actual manuscript, which is about 5,000. And then there's a lot of references. We obviously reference all of our sources and we have figures and tables and things that make the point about some of the details of the science. So it's overall probably about a 20 page article.

Kevin Geddings: 3:11

Wow! So you realize, a lot of our listeners are of a certain age where they have not had to write, you know, an essay or anything you know, in a number of decades, but you're still doing it.

Dr. Michael Koren: 3:21

I'm still doing it without AI support, with a very key point.

Kevin Geddings: 3:26

So how long does it take to write something like that?

Dr. Michael Koren: 3:30

This project went on for about a year. So there's multiple layers to it. There are lots of people involved. I'm not the only author. I had other co-authors who took a supportive role and I would present my draft to them and they would give me feedback and input. And then we had an interaction with the journal itself and went back and forth multiple times with editors there to correct all the errors and ultimately get into the form that it is now.

Kevin Geddings: 3:59

Yeah, so editors with the red pen, you accept that kind of criticism pretty well.

Dr. Michael Koren: 4:06

Absolutely yeah, there is a saying that you have to be a sequester to the editor if you want your things published.

Kevin Geddings: 4:12

Yeah, hey, if you're just hopping in your vehicle, we're talking with Dr. Michael Koren. We do that every Monday morning and, excited, he just had a piece published in The LANCET, which is a British medical journal similar to JAMA or the New England Journal of Medicine, a very big deal. And so do they give you, like, extra copies that you can give out to family and friends.

Dr. Michael Koren: 4:31

Well, they used to. Actually they changed that now. So now I get a link. So people that want to get the data, I typically have to subscribe to the journal and pay money for that, but the author gets a free link and I can share that with my extended friends and family.

Kevin Geddings: 4:47

Yeah, that includes us.

Dr. Michael Koren: 4:48

So I'm happy to share that with anybody that's listening to us and may be interested.

Kevin Geddings: 4:51

Yeah, before I let you go kind of backing up just a little bit, because that whole issue of there are people out there that are listening to us or they know of people who have cholesterol, high levels of high measurement of cholesterol, that doesn't seem to be well managed with just Lipitor at a certain dosage, right.

Dr. Michael Koren: 5:10

Yeah, and I'm going to mention that because I'm actually working on another publication and I was asked to present at the national meeting of the American College of Cardiology in April in Atlanta, talking about that exact issue that most people who are at very high risk for having a heart attack or a stroke actually don't have their cholesterol levels where they should be, and so it's a big public health problem and we have some ideas to address that. So I was asked to lecture to a national audience about that in April. I'm excited about that. But people who are perhaps in that category, or if you know somebody who may be in that category, send them down, come to our research office. We'll assess your cholesterol levels for free and, if you're appropriate, we'll get you involved in a program that will help you get to where you should be.

Kevin Geddings: 5:56

Yeah, and that's really important, because heighten and levels of cholesterol left untreated over time equals

Dr. Michael Koren: 6:06

Equals risk for heart attack and stroke.

Kevin Geddings: 6:07

Yeah.

Dr. Michael Koren: 6:08

Yeah, that's amazing, once you get your LDL cholesterol below 50, the likelihood of a heart attack or stroke, even if you've had one before, is actually pretty low. Yeah, so we can do tremendous things by controlling your lipid level.

Kevin Geddings: 6:23

Well, when I first met Dr. Koren years ago, you gave me a statistic, a number, you know, rough estimate of how many lives you think have been saved by people taking statins over the last several, you know, last few decades, and it's likely in the tens of millions, isn't it?

Dr. Michael Koren: 6:39

Absolutely. Yeah, it's certainly in the many millions and probably in the tens of millions, so it's really a wonder drug. It's a wonder drug actually that's underutilized now, and it's a wonder drug that has the limitations that we have other medications to overcome those limitations at this point. So there's really very little excuse for people not addressing this if they're at high risk for heart disease or stroke.

Kevin Geddings: 7:04

And if you are at high risk of heart disease or stroke or you have elevated levels of cholesterol. They have some leading edge programs, trials that you can participate in with ENCORE Research Group. They have offices right here in St. Augustine, in St John's County, at UF Flagler Hospital really well, next door at the Whetstone Building. You can learn more about those trials and how you can participate and perhaps get compensated for that participation by going to ENCOREdocs. com. That's ENCOREdocs. com, or call 904-730-0166. And the piece that Dr. Koren wrote in The LANCET Medical Journal. We're going to make a link available for that piece on our Facebook page at WSOS Radio, so we hope that you'll check it out. Any closing thoughts, Dr. Koren, before we let you go on this Monday morning.

Dr. Michael Koren: 7:52

No, no, I appreciate it, sharing the information with your audience. And again, we're in heart month, so this is a good time to think about your heart disease risk and get some help. It could be at our organization or with your primary care physician or your cardiologist if you have a relationship with somebody, but I would really urge everybody to assess their cardiovascular risk. It's still the number one killer of people in the United States and it's something that we can prevent, so let's go out there and make a difference, absolutely.

Kevin Geddings: 8:24

Dr. Michael Koren once again. Learn more about him and all the great work they're doing in ways you can participate in some leading edge medical trials and clinical trials by going to ENCOREdocs. com.

Narrator: 8:39

Thanks for joining the MedEvidence Podcast. To learn more, head over to MedEvidence. com or subscribe to our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.