Narrator:
0:00
Welcome to the MedEvidence Monday Minute Radio Show hosted by Kevin Gettings of WSOS St Augustine Radio and powered by ENORE 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:
0:32
Hey, this is the time we always enjoy each and every week because we get to spend it with Dr. Michael Koren, medical doctor, research scientists and, of course, leads the team at ENCORE Clinical Research. They do medical research, clinical research, here in Northeast Florida with offices right here in St Augustine near Flagler Hospital at the Whetstone Building. Good morning, Dr. Koren, how are you?
Dr. Michael Koren:
0:54
Doing well, Kevin. Good morning.
Kevin Geddings:
0:55
Yes, we appreciate you taking time out of your day, obviously, to be with us, and we wanted to talk a little bit about family issues, increasingly a topic that we may share with family members that we didn't maybe talk about 40 years ago as well. If dad had blank heart disease, cholesterol, high blood pressure, maybe there's a good chance that you might have it or that your child might have it. So we tend to be a little more focused on family and the role of family and health than maybe we were a few decades back.
Dr. Michael Koren:
1:26
Yeah, it's a great segue into a lot of the work that we're doing and, as you know, families can be complicated and we see one of the things that we can do for our community is at least make it a little less complicated from a health care perspective. It's complicated enough from a non-health care perspective for many of us. So what do I mean by that? Well, to get specific, there's a concept called cascade screening in medicine, and what that means basically is that if you have an illness that can run in families, you try to identify which family members have the genes that are responsible for that illness. So a very common example that we are doing as we speak and that we work on that we've been working on for years, in fact is the concept of a problem called familial hypercholesterolemia, and this is a condition that's genetically mediated, in which a parent will give a gene to a child that puts that child at risk for complications of high cholesterol. So those folks will have higher cholesterol as than normal for their entire lives because the problem will start at a younger age. But the good news is that we can identify the folks that have this, we can actually identify the genes responsible and we have fabulous treatments that will prevent complications of hypercholesterolemia or high cholesterol. So in this way we can help parents, help their kids, by identifying what the issue is and then intervene inappropriately as really as possible. That would be one example of it.
Dr. Michael Koren:
2:55
Another interesting example is actually we're working with Moderna as we speak, which is a big vaccine company, on the problem of Epstein-Barr virus. So people have probably heard of Epstein-Barr virus. It's a double-stranded DNA virus, which makes it much more complicated, by the way, than COVID in terms of its viral structure. But this is the virus that people know causes mononucleosis, which is a new-picture disease that teenagers get, and so we're working with Moderna to identify which teenagers in our community are at risk for this infection and, of course, hopefully down the road sometime not immediately necessarily, but down the road sometime have a way of treating these people to prevent the complications of Epstein-Barr virus through vaccinations. Keep in mind that Epstein-Barr virus is a very common infection. It's associated with a lot of different illnesses, including mono, and it's also associated with cancers later in life. So there are many good reasons to identify the risks for this particular illness.
Kevin Geddings:
3:59
Well, if you have any questions, too, about the role of family and your health, if you have any questions about that, you can always start by going to a great resource for health and medical information medevidence. com. That's medevidence. com, and when folks go to that website, Dr. Koren, what will they find there?
Dr. Michael Koren:
4:18
Medevidence is our platform to discuss medical issues and our motto on the website is the truth behind the data. And, as everybody can attest to, medical information can be very, very confusing and there are competing claims and what's real and what's not. What can you trust. So we break it down for people so they can understand the different sides of every healthcare question, and we have a lot of programs for example, two docs talking about an issue and we'll cover all ends of the issue and we like to package this either in short bursts or in more extended sessions and I think people would enjoy it, whatever the issue might be. It's interesting. A friend of mine called me over the weekend and said well, what should I do about my PSA?
Dr. Michael Koren:
5:00
you know, the prostate screening test, and there's a big controversy about whether or not folks should be screened for it, and that's the type of thing we're gonna cover in a podcast coming up. We actually did it a few years ago. We're gonna do it again because there's such interest in it, such as one example of the many healthcare dilemmas and controversies at times that we help people navigate.
Kevin Geddings:
5:21
Yeah, I've learned so much from Dr. Koren over the years. I know our listeners have too. One takeaway I've gotten is that so many people, when they hear conflicting research data, medical research data, they just throw their hands up and say, well, it's all wrong, and that's really not the way to view it. Is it doctor?
Dr. Michael Koren:
5:37
It isn't, and making decisions with uncertainty is actually one of the skill sets of a good physician, and we like to break it down for people so they can understand that, even though we may not know everything, we probably know enough so that you can actually make a decision to benefit yourself and your family.
Kevin Geddings:
5:55
Yeah, absolutely Well. Medical research involving families and, of course, Dr. Koren working right now on ways to make teenage girls easier to deal with right.
Dr. Michael Koren:
6:07
Well, if I were able to figure that out, I would win a Noble prize.
Kevin Geddings:
6:11
Yeah, he wouldn't even bother dealing with us anymore. He'd be so famous by that point. So, Dr. Koren, it's always fun. We appreciate you being such a good sport and always a good resource for us.
Narrator:
6:24
Thanks for joining the MedEvidence podcast. To learn more, head over to medevidencecom or subscribe to our podcast and your favorite podcast platform.
