Loving Low Cholesterol

Transcript generated by AI

Announcer: 0:00

Welcome to the MedEvidence Monday Minute Radio Show, Hosted by Kevin Geddings of WSOS St. Augustine Radio and powered by ENCORE Research Group. Each monday morning, Dr. Michael Koren calls in to bring up 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: 0:31

Dr. Michael Koren, medical doctor, cardiologist, and of course research scientist as well. Is love truly like oxygen, Dr. Koren?

Michael Koren, MD.: 0:41

Well, Kevin, I'm a scientist. So I I basically ask questions and find out. So let me ask you a question. Did you get the right amounts of love this weekend? Did you get too much and you feel sick? Or too little and feel sick? Or just about the right amount?

Kevin Geddings: 0:57

Oh, there you go. There you go. That's how you know, right?

Michael Koren, MD.: 1:00

Yeah, you have to ask you have to ask questions. And and when I make this observation over and over again, and then we formalize this observation over thousands and thousands of people, then we have a clinical trial. Oh, and then we really know how much love is necessary to keep people healthy.

Kevin Geddings: 1:15

That would be an interesting clinical trial. We could get all kinds of international press over that one.

Michael Koren, MD.: 1:20

Absolutely. Absolutely. Which, you know, gets to this interesting part of the Valentine's Day weekend.

Kevin Geddings: 1:26

Right.

Michael Koren, MD.: 1:27

I think that uh you're aware of the fact that the origins of Valentine's Day were actually a pagan holiday called Lupercalia, which was celebrated for hundreds of years by the Roman Empire. And when the Roman Empire adopted Christianity, they were looking at Lupercalia, which was this crazy festival of three days between February thirteenth and February 15th, where fertility was the focus of the uh of the population, and it was literally partying and debauchery for three days. And when the when Christianity came into place, they realized they had to clean this up a little bit. So they they rebranded it uh to make it a romantic holiday, and it was a very successful rebranding, I would have to say.

Kevin Geddings: 2:09

Yeah, no kidding. Yeah, $26 billion spent this weekend on all sorts of flowers and chocolates and the like. It keeps getting bigger and bigger each and every year, Dr. Koren. So we hope you had a good Valentine's weekend.

Michael Koren, MD.: 2:22

Had the exact right amount of love for Valentine's Day, so I'm super happy right now.

Kevin Geddings: 2:26

That's right, just like Sweet is singing. A lot of our listeners, myself included, Dr. Koren, of course, take a statin every day to deal with high cholesterol. I've been doing this since I was in my 30s. Exciting things, though, on the horizon for people that are dealing with high cholesterol, right?

Michael Koren, MD.: 2:40

Absolutely. I think we're headed into a golden age for the treatment of cholesterol and other lipid disorders, which is the word for blood fats. Uh statins have been a mainstay and they've been really successful, but they're not perfect. Some people have some side effects related to statins, and they get your cholesterol down to a certain degree, but not necessarily as low as it needs to be for some patients. But with newer technologies, we're looking at a real change in this whole dynamic. And I think it's fair to say that based on the new technology, within the next decade, we will have a cure for all cholesterol and lipid problems. And I say this because we're about to start studies that are looking at gene editing, which is getting to the underlying problem that creates these cholesterol abnormalities that lead to heart attacks and strokes and other complications. Now, that's not to say that gene editing will be for everybody. But with this tool that we're just about to launch, assuming that it's successful, I think we'll be able to cover virtually the whole spectrum of different lipid disorders, which includes LDL cholesterol, which is the most common form of lipid disorder where you have too much bad cholesterol and you need to use a drug like a statin or PCSK9 inhibitor to get lower levels of that uh LDL cholesterol. We've talked a lot a lot about lipoprotein(a), and there are four molecules in late stages of development that should be on the market sometime next year that'll solve this genetic problem that previously had no solution. Now we have drugs that are focused on triglyceride problems. They're called ANGPTL3 inhibitors, and those products have just started to hit the market, and we're working with a number of uh companies that are developing those products. And finally, for people that have severe forms of genetic dyslipidemia, we will now have gene editing as a solution. So it's super exciting for those of us in the lipid field, and it's a great opportunity for people that have had cholesterol problems to come see us. And we can kind of gear you. Uh obviously when you come into one of our centers, we look at you very carefully, look at your records, interview you, and then sometimes we say, you know what, a clinical trial is not the right thing for you. But sometimes we say, Hey, we got the perfect study that we think would be benefit to you. You learn a lot about your condition, hopefully get results one way or another in terms of lower lowering levels of these uh bad lipid molecules, and then finally uh have a really enjoyable experience with great staff and caring people.

Kevin Geddings: 5:11

Absolutely. Yeah, I'm engaged in a study right now dealing with the COVID vaccine and highly recommend the experience. I've done this before, and other members of our team here at WSOS have as well. And before we let this topic go completely, when we talk about editing your genes in a way, I think some people start getting a little, you know, intrigued by all that. But how would what what does that even look like for the layman or for the person that you know may benefit from this?

Michael Koren, MD.: 5:35

So there are expression of your genes in different organs in the body, and for cholesterol problems, the expression occurs in the liver.

Kevin Geddings: 5:43

Okay.

Michael Koren, MD.: 5:44

Which makes it something that's very targetable. So instead of using a therapy that goes goes throughout your body, we now have these therapies that go just to the liver and no place else, and they correct the error of your genes and prevent you from making extra levels of LDL cholesterol or lipoprotein(a) or whatever it is the bad cholesterol molecule may be. So this is really just breakthrough technology in that we can target just one place in your body and get to the root cause of the problem. So really, really fascinating stuff. Obviously, I can give a much more nerdy, much more detailed view of all this, and we're happy to do this as people come in and find out whether or not something like gene editing would be in their future or not.

Kevin Geddings: 6:29

Yeah. Well, and that's the kind of detailed explanation you're gonna get how it actually is going to function in your body, what's gonna be going on when you participate, you know, in these clinical trials. Dr. Michael Koren, we appreciate all your time this morning. We hope you have a good president's day, okay? Thanks to you, Kevin.

Announcer: 6:44

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