Announcer:
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 healthcare. This is MedEvidence.
Kevin Geddings:
0:30
I hope you're having a good morning so far. Dr. Michael Koren, joining me live on the studio line right now, and it is about 24 minutes before we get to nine o'clock. Good morning, Michael Koren. How are you?
Dr. Michael Koren:
0:39
Good morning, Kevin. Happy New Year.
Kevin Geddings:
0:40
Well, happy New Year to you and Dr. Michael Koren, as we've been talking about this morning, joining us live on the studio line. He, of course, our resident and part of our family here. He is a cardiologist, medical doctor and research scientist. He heads up the ENCORE Research Group at and they have opportunities for folks like you and me to participate in leading-edge medical research clinical trials. We had a big news item late last week where our current Surgeon General announced that they may want to put warning labels on alcohol, and what are your thoughts on that, doctor?
Dr. Michael Koren:
1:14
Yeah, interesting. Just for everybody's knowledge, the current Surgeon General is Vivek Murthy, and there's a good chance he'll be replaced when the Trump administration takes over. But he came out with a recommendation that Congress pass a rule or a law that requires alcohol manufacturers to state that alcohol is associated with certain types of cancer, and they presented data showing how cancers such as cancer of the mouth or pharynx, esophagus, breast and colon were associated with alcohol use, even at relatively low levels. And so the recommendation of the Surgeon General was to ask Congress to put out warning labels. But honestly, I have reservations about that. As a cardiologist, in fact and a pun is intended here that could be a grave mistake to start telling people that alcohol use has only negative health impacts, because in the cardiology world, the data show that moderate or less alcohol use is actually associated with less heart disease. Alcohol seems to raise HDL cholesterol a little bit.
Dr. Michael Koren:
2:37
That has a positive effect and it may have other benefits in people that are at risk for coronary artery disease, and, in fact, coronary artery disease is much more common than these GI cancers. So just think about this If you influence the behavior of consumers that are at high risk for coronary disease, it might have a negative impact on overall health. And in fact, when you look at insurance tables for life insurance companies, they actually rate the longevity of moderate or less alcohol users higher than those that don't drink at all. So it's a pretty interesting area and I'm not sure I would necessarily recommend that there are labels that state that alcohol use is associated with cancer, without talking about the nuance of the use of alcohol.
Kevin Geddings:
3:28
Yeah, I would almost argue. For why not put some sort of a label on wine saying that you know the FDA and others have found that it could benefit people dealing with cardiovascular issues right?
Dr. Michael Koren:
3:38
Yeah, exactly. So again, and that's complex also is that not everybody will have that effect, but maybe just something that says alcohol can have health consequences. Talk to your doctor. Which is really what I would like to see is that the government encourage people to talk to their physicians, who have the patient's best interest at hand and also can analyze are you at higher risk for GI cancers than heart disease? And also can analyze are you at higher risk for GI cancers than heart disease? It is possible that you have some patients that are extremely high risk for GI cancers and they should moderate their alcohol use, but there could be others that don't have that high risk, that are much higher risk for cholesterol issues and heart disease, that actually probably should drink a little bit.
Kevin Geddings:
4:20
Yeah, there you go. Speaking of drinking, I wanted to ask you about this anyway. You know this is dry January where a lot of folks, coming out of the holidays and maybe they drank a little bit more in December than they would normally decide to take the month off. Does taking a month off and then going back to your normal sort of, you know, glass of wine or cocktail or two routine, does that benefit you physically to take a month off from alcohol?
Dr. Michael Koren:
4:45
Yeah, I'm not aware that taking a month off from alcohol does anything good or bad. Quite frankly, from an overall health perspective, I'm not sure that makes a big difference. On the other hand, habitual use of alcohol may not be the best thing. So even for somebody that likes to have wine with dinner, I don't think it's bad to take a little bit of time off here and there, like to have wine with dinner.
Dr. Michael Koren:
5:10
I don't think it's bad to take a little bit of time off here and there, make sure you're not addicted and make sure that maybe subtle side effects of the use of alcohol are not affecting you in one way or another. So I would say that in that case it's an individual decision and people have to see how they feel and what other health consequences are related to either having that one or two drinks a day versus having a period of time when you're free of alcohol.
Kevin Geddings:
5:33
Yeah, there you go. That's Dr Michael Korn, if you're just tuning in. He's with us live this morning, as he normally is on Monday mornings, and of course with ENCORE Research Group he heads up the show there. Learn more at EncoreDocscom. Encoredocscom. I know there's so many different clinical trials that people can participate in here in Northeast Florida, but maybe give us one example of one that people may want to consider.
Dr. Michael Koren:
5:56
Well, we have a lot of interesting things going on and it's hard for me to say one. So what I would say is that we're working with new ways of treating cholesterol. So if people have that concern, give us a buzz. We're doing some really interesting vaccine work. Now we're working on an oral vaccine against COVID. I know there's been a lot of concerns and controversies about the mRNA vaccines. I personally have no qualms with them at all, but others may want other choices. So we talked about this a couple weeks ago is that the very famous polio vaccine that had a huge impact on getting rid of polio in the United States was an oral vaccine, and now people are looking at an oral vaccine for COVID. So we're excited about that.
Dr. Michael Koren:
6:42
We also have a lot of work in the GI space. We are working on things that are related to the microbiome, for example, which is an important space that could affect people that have GI problems, like severe diarrhea People that have C difficile infections, for example, is another one of the areas that we're working on, and, down the list, we're working on cough of unknown origin. It's another place that we're actually working on. We have studies on people that need help with weight loss and certainly we're very involved in that space. We're doing things in diabetes that aren't really innovative. So on and on. Chances are that if you're struggling with some health issue, that there's something that we can address for your benefit.
Kevin Geddings:
7:32
Before we let you go too, I want to mention MedEvidence. com, medevidence. com and Dr. Koren. Why should folks check that website out?
Dr. Michael Koren:
7:40
Well, again, it's our platform for getting to the truth behind the data. So we started talking about the risk of cancer with alcohol and, given the fact that this is now, in the news. We will definitely have a podcast that addresses that. I'm not sure yet who the physicians are, but it's a good example of what we call our two docs talk series, where two physicians can talk about the pros and cons of an issue and help the public navigate it.
Dr. Michael Koren:
8:08
So we have now hundreds of podcasts that go into that and basically we help people understand what we know about a particular medical area, what we don't know about a medical area and how we learn about the things that we don't know, and how to manage controversies in medicine and how to come up with a plan for each individual patient so that you can protect yourself and your family as best as possible, based on the information available.
Kevin Geddings:
8:31
That's right. Well, check it out and encourage your friends and others to look at it. I know so many people immediately go to Google or they go to TikTok or whatever for information, but this is a much more reliable source of information when it comes to your health. Go to medevidencecom. That's medevidencecom the truth behind the data. Dr. Michael Koren, we appreciate you taking time out on this Monday morning. We hope you have a good week, okay.
Dr. Michael Koren:
8:54
Have a great week, Kevin.
Announcer:
8:54
Thanks for joining the MedEvidence podcast. To learn more, head over to MedEvidencecom or subscribe to our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
