Unmasking Common Causes of Persistent Coughs

Transcript created by AI

Announcer: 0:00

Welcome to the MedEvidence Monday Minute radio show hosted by Kevin Geddings 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 health care. This is MedEvidence.

Kevin Geddings: 0:28

Dr. Michael Koren is here with me, and the thing we wanted to talk with Dr. Koren about this morning constant cough. You know, if I were to Google that it would immediately take me to cancer, but there's probably a more you know smarter way to do that, of course. Check out MedEvidence, right?

Dr. Michael Koren: 0:50

Yeah, it's funny you ask that question because sometimes the things that are most puzzling to people are relatively simple things that don't have a real solution. And that's one of the things that we look at in clinical research is try to help people with some of these common ailments that you may not have a good answer for. So it's funny you bring that up because we are doing a study right now looking at how to deal with a cough. That doesn't have a simple answer. So let me first explain what a cough could be.

Dr. Michael Koren: 1:20

Obviously, we all cough and that's how we get rid of irritants to our pulmonary tract. But when you have a chronic cough that becomes annoying and sort of limits your lifestyle, there could be reasons for that. Some of the common reasons would be gastroesophageal reflux, where the acid contents of your stomach or other contents of your stomach get to the back of your throat and cause you to cough. Another common reason people get cough is a post-nasal drip, that annoying accumulation of fluids in the back of your nose that drops down to the back of your throat and causes a cough. Sometimes a cough could be an indication of asthma. Obviously, a cough can be some type of toxin that you're taking to your system that you have to get rid of, like cigarette smoking. So those are all reasons that people can have a chronic cough and the reasons that we understand. But how about for the people that don't have any of those issues? Then what do you do

Dr. Michael Koren: 2:13

you do and as we speak, we're looking for people that might have that situation, because we're going to study them in a clinical trial and hopefully understand what's causing it and maybe come up with a solution. .

Kevin Geddings: 2:26

Great stuff and indeed sometimes you know I'll have some calls, sometimes after you're on the air and people say, well, how complicated is this process, you know. You think of clinical trials, you think of science, you think of medical journals, but it's actually a very simple process, isn't it, doctor?

Dr. Michael Koren: 2:40

It's both simple and complex. That's the right answer, so we like to make it simple for the patients. You call us. We'll get some basic information. We'll bring you in for an evaluation if it's appropriate. Obviously, we'll give you a little bit of information to make sure it's a good fit and you come in. You'll have one of our people It'll typically be a nurse or a physician that will ask you medical questions and then see whether or not you fit into one of the programs that we're running. Each of the programs that we're running have very complicated sets of rules, and so we have to make sure it's a good fit between the patient and the study. But even if you don't fit into a study perfectly, you're still going to get the value of the evaluation and have a good time. One of the things we like to say is that health care should be fun, and so people should go in and enjoy the experience and hopefully learn something about their health.

Kevin Geddings: 3:33

Yeah absolutely. MedEvidence.com Dr. Michael Koren, and if you are tired of all the bad health information you get from Facebook and from Google, you can go on the Internet, right doctor?

Dr. Michael Koren: 3:44

It's our medevidence.com platform and it helps people get to the truth. We call it the truth behind the data medevidence.com and it's really kind of crazy. The more stories I hear, look at something like Dr Google is a term you like to use and somebody's trying to sell you something. And what they're trying to sell you may not be in your interest In fact, it may not even be your diagnosis. Nonetheless, they're still trying to sell it to you.

Dr. Michael Koren: 5:04

What you get from MedEvidence is really experts doctors that care about the lives of their patients discussing a particular issue, and what we tell people is there's things that we know about an issue, there are things that we don't know about an issue, and there's ways of trying to figure out the stuff we don't know, and that's what we do. So once you know what we know and what we don't know, then you can figure out if you can be part of the process of learning more about the issue or just apply the knowledge that we share with you about what we know and what we don't know.

Kevin Geddings: 4:46

Yeah Well, once again, it's a great resource, very intuitive, easy MedEvidence.com use. Go to the website, medevidence.com. That's medevidence.com, dr Michael Corran. We appreciate your time. Thank you for joining us and we'll chat again next Monday okay, it's my pleasure.

Dr. Michael Koren: 5:04

Have a great week.

Announcer: 5:10

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