Taking Control of Your Health in Anxious Times

Dr. Michael Koren joins Kevin Geddings to offer the solace of taking control of your medical future in these uncertain times. The doctor reminds listeners that when news is stressful and chaotic, doing things that impact you and your life can help reduce anxiety. He suggests that taking advantage of free screening exams at clinical research sites may help people make sense of the otherwise mysterious and can help find solutions to problems they weren't even aware of.

Be a part of advancing science by participating in clinical research.

Have a question for Dr. Koren? Email him at askDrKoren@MedEvidence.com

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Music: Storyblocks - Corporate Inspired

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Framing The Stress
• 0:47 From Global Chaos To Personal Control
• 1:42 Free Tests: Lp(a) And FibroScan
• 2:39 Personalizing Health Beyond Internet Advice
• 4:33 Next Steps And How Research Helps

Transcript

Announcer: 0:00

Welcome to the MedEvidence Monday Minute Radio Show, hosted by Kevin Gettings of WSOS Radio and powered by ENCORE Research Group. Each Monday morning, Dr. Michael Koren calls us to bring you the latest medical updates with insightful discussions. MedEvidence is where we help you navigate the real truth behind medical research from 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: 0:32

Lots of stuff going on in the world. I know a lot of folks are exhausted by current events, even if they just get little snippets of it, issues going on in Minneapolis and all over the world. You know, sometimes you have to kind of focus a little bit on yourself and your family, right?

Michael Koren, MD.: 0:45

You you bet, yeah. We were just chatting before we uh just got on about the weekend's over, fire up my computer, look at the the news, and it's just it's just craziness. You have this major storm that's paralyzing the country, uh, large parts of it at least. You have uh gold hitting over five thousand dollars an ounce because the US dollar has been degraded. You have protests and ICE in different communities over the country, just exhausting all these these things that are going on. And when you get like that, you have to ask yourself, like, what do I have control over versus just what's happening? And you and I have talked about this several times, but sometimes the best way to deal with all that general anxiety and in and general noise is just to pick something and make yourself better.

Kevin Geddings: 1:36

Right.

Michael Koren, MD.: 1:37

And I think um hopefully our organization, our research organization can help people accomplish just that. And you know, more specifically, one of the things that the research organization is doing right now is doing testing for things that people can't get very easily. So a couple of examples of that, and we've talked about these before, but just to reinforce it, is this concept of a lipoprotein(a), which is a specialized cholesterol test that a lot of a lot of medical facilities don't do on a regular basis because we haven't had any way to treat it in the past, but that's all changing. And people can get free lipoprotein(a) testing in the research offices. Another example of that is something called a Fibro Scan, which is a neat technology that actually looks at your liver to see if there's any fat in the liver and to see whether not there's any scarring in the liver. So again, amidst all the chaos, there's something you can do for yourself and get focused on something to make you better. And that's I think should be our message for today.

Kevin Geddings: 2:39

Yeah, it reduces the stress in your life when you can take control over the things that you can control, right? And which uh to the prime example would be your health care or your decision to participate in some clinical research, correct?

Michael Koren, MD.: 2:51

Absolutely. Absolutely. And and you know, more broadly, there's also all this noise about RFK Jr. and the new diet permit and all this sort of thing. But with all these things, uh everybody's different. The the the problem that that happens, you know, I've I've talked about this extensively, is that when you get advice on the internet, it's one general advice, not specific to the individuals, and two, it's selling a product typically. And so what we'll talk about uh this week is common sense advice but more importantly, the concept that you have to individualize things for each person. Every person's unique, every person has certain circumstances, preferences, etcetera. And it's very, very hard to make general advice work for everybody. So it's a combination of understanding what drives disease in terms of lifestyle, in terms of genetics, and then using both this common concept of eating healthy and exercising and doing good things, and concepts from medicine to treat underlying things that are very difficult to treat by yourself. And we try to help people navigate that in the research environment. Again, breaking it down very simply. If you know your lipoprotein(a), which is an example of a genetic problem, not everybody has it, but 20% of people. And unless you would know that, how would you possibly get into that detail of fixing it? Similarly, for FibroScanning, if you have the tendency to develop scarring in your liver, how would you know that? Well, you wouldn't. And the Fibro-Scanning, again, is one of those technologies that is not widely used in practices because the insurance companies don't reimburse very well for it. But the research office get it for free.

Kevin Geddings: 4:33

Right.

Michael Koren, MD.: 4:33

And once we have that information, we can actually help you understand what next steps might look like. So that's our focal point for this week.

Kevin Geddings: 4:40

Yeah. Dr. Koren, thank you for your time today. We appreciate you and stay warm over the next 24 hours, okay?

Michael Koren, MD.: 4:47

We'll do. Same to you, Kevin.

Announcer: 4:49

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