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 health care. This is MedEvidence.
Kevin Geddings:
0:31
Dr. Michael Koren, medical doctor, cardiologist, research scientist and the BIG CHEESE at ENCORE Research Group, Right, Dr Koren.
Dr. Michael Koren:
0:40
Yeah, they call me the cheese, but I'm not sure they call me the big cheese.
Dr. Michael Koren:
0:49
that's a good title, though we want to mention too yeah, they're also BC for now on.
Kevin Geddings:
0:53
Yeah, the big cheese BC we want to mention too. There are opportunities out there to get to see Dr. Koren live and in person which is exciting, not just on the radio and he's going to be participating in an event at WJCT, the public radio station up in Jacksonville, on Friday June 6th. They do these Lunch and Learn series events there and they're going to talk about changing medicine through medical research. That's Friday, June 6th at 11:30, lunch is included, and so if you'd like to register you just go to wjcto. rg for that. But today we wanted to talk with Dr. Koren about AFib. On a lot of different radio stations and TV You'll see all these ads for people saying, hey, if you suffer and deal with AFib, get in touch with us. So there's a lot of interest in that particular condition, correct?
Dr. Michael Koren:
1:36
There is, there is. And, Kevin, have you ever wondered why there's so much advertising around AFib?
Kevin Geddings:
1:42
Yeah, I wonder why. I'm trying to figure out how there's big money in AFib.
Dr. Michael Koren:
1:47
Yeah, so it gets to the point that you and I have talked about, which is how the media interfaces with patient populations and what drives that.
Dr. Michael Koren:
1:57
And the truth is that AFib is kind of a moneymaker for hospitals and for physician groups and, by the way, I'm not being critical here the hospitals do a lot of things for free and they deserve to have things that they can make money for.
Dr. Michael Koren:
2:11
But AFib is a condition to remind everybody. That's an irregular heartbeat and if you have AFib, your risk of a stroke goes up five or six times, and these commercials will certainly remind you about that true fact. The good news is that if you use a blood thinner, then you reduce that risk quite a bit. But the hospitals also know that they have devices that are made by major manufacturers that are put into the heart. They're called left atrial occluding devices, and these devices reduce the risk of having clots in the heart, therefore reducing the risk of strokes without the use of anticoagulation. And these are elective procedures that tend to pay well for the hospitals and they're also for the interest of these manufacturers that make these devices and, of course, the cardiologists who put them in also make some money. So, again, all these people deserve what they're earning but that kind of drives the advertising.
Dr. Michael Koren:
3:07
On the other hand, you never see hospital ads that say oh, did you have too much to drink last night? You feel like you're about to fall down? Come to our emergency room, we'll take care of you. That probably happens just as often as AFib, but the hospitals aren't particularly interested in advertising for that because it doesn't have sort of the same lucrative end result for the hospitals. So in any event, that's part of the issue that affects people, so they're being hit with these advertisements Again.
Dr. Michael Koren:
3:35
Everything is accurate about the advertising and ultimately doing good for people, but definitely driven in part by the financial implications. And that's different than what we do in the research practice. So we do get study grants for doing our work, but we are being hired to be completely objective. So our job is just to produce data, not to promote one thing versus another, and we tend to work with different types of companies.
Dr. Michael Koren:
4:01
So an example of that is we're actually doing a study in AFib right now and we're working with a very small entrepreneur who was able to come up with a small grant for our expenses, and what this study involves is using a new monitoring device, which is a patch that you place on people's chest that the manufacturer thinks is going to be better than the current patches for detecting arrhythmias such as AFib. And this is all free for patients. You get a little stipend for being part of it. We're looking for 50 local patients to be part of it. At the end of the day, we're helping this entrepreneur collect data that he will ultimately send to the FDA to hopefully get approval for his device, or maybe not. Again, if the device doesn't work out as well as other devices in the market, then he wouldn't get the approval. But our role is just to be the objective assessment tool for this device and hopefully help a small entrepreneur be successful.
Dr. Michael Koren:
4:56
I would certainly love to see that.
Kevin Geddings:
4:57
Yeah, that's exciting, right? Not just a large pharmaceutical company, but somebody that is smaller and entrepreneurial, right? Very exciting. All right, that's great stuff. Hey, before we let you go, too, I want to remind folks to access MedEvidence! when they have questions about their health, right?
Dr. Michael Koren:
5:15
Exactly, and MedEvidence!, to the point I just made, is going to be objective. We're going to look at all sides of a particular medical issue. I'll give you an example we just did a podcast that one of the listeners wanted to hear about.
Dr. Michael Koren:
5:29
She mentioned that we talk about drugs a lot, but she felt that we weren't talking enough about diet. So we brought in a dietary expert and physician who's dedicated his entire career to evaluating diet. We talked in very scientific terms about how people should think about diet. So we cover everything. We're objective. We're not trying to sell anything other than the information. So hopefully people can appreciate that and enjoy the format.
Kevin Geddings:
5:54
Yeah, absolutely Well, once again, go to MedEvidence. com. Medevidence. com, if you or someone you know has AFib. They're dealing with AFib and you'd like to perhaps participate in the study that Dr. Koren just talked about here locally in Northeast Florida, you can go to encordocs. com. That's E-N-C-O-R-E encordocs. com. Dr. Koren, thank you very much for your time this morning and we'll talk soon. Okay,
Dr. Michael Koren:
6:18
have a great week.
Dr. Michael Koren:
6:19
Kevin.
Announcer:
6:22
Thanks for joining the MedEvidence podcast. To learn more, head over to MedEvidence. com or subscribe to our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
