Scienceploitation is the Difference Between Science and Empty Marketing

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 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: 0:31

Dr. Michael Koren is with us a horse medical doctor, cardiologist, research scientist. He also directs the efforts there at ENCORE Research Group, where people like you and me can participate in leading-edge clinical research, benefit from just some amazing healthcare, but also benefit from being at the leading edge of healthcare and a lot of you have different chronic conditions or other challenges. I would encourage you to reach out and see how you can participate in clinical research. Uh, benefit society, but also, just as importantly, benefit yourself. Go to encore docs. com, spelled E N, c, ocoredocs. com. Dr. Michael Koren joins us on Monday mornings. Doctor, what would you like to talk about this morning?

Dr. Michael Koren: 1:11

So thank you for that nice little plug and get to something that I've been thinking quite a bit about, which is a term called scienceploitation Scienceploitation- Okay. So have you, Kevin, gotten a lot of texts and emails in the last year on these scams? I get them. For example, somebody says hi, I'm Elena from Best Buy and your resume came across my desk. Give me a call and we'll figure out how to help you.

Kevin Geddings: 1:41

Oh yeah.

Dr. Michael Koren: 1:43

We're just getting inundated with these things and we see the most in the medical space and typically they're for medical supplements, but they can be for procedures and other things. And they'll say something like oh, come in for a research study, when in fact they're just trying to get you in under the premise that it may be for free and in fact they're trying to sell you something the premise that it may be for free and in fact they're trying to sell you something. Or they'll be trying to sell a supplement and they'll use these vague terms like supports the immune system. Well, that sounds great, but what the heck does that mean exactly? That's a very different way of marketing something compared to oh, this product reduced hospitalizations during the cold and flu season by 25%.

Dr. Michael Koren: 2:24

So the second claim is an actual scientific claim that would have to be approved by the FDA and the first one is a bunch of marketing mumbo-jumbo. Interestingly, sometimes supplement companies do actually run clinical trials and we've done some of these. Okay, and a friend over the weekend sent me a supplement that he and his wife is taking for magnesium and at first I was a little skeptical. It said it promotes brain health, which is a typical marketing claim. But then, when I read the details of this particular product, they actually had run clinical trials and during these clinical trials they found that people could recall things better if they took the supplement, compared to not taking the supplement.

Dr. Michael Koren: 3:07

And it was a real double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial. So I was very impressed and I put out the word that this is the type of product I would buy, because there's truth behind the data, there's something out there that's more than just a bunch of marketing. So one of the things we like to do at our Encore research sites is we like to help people become better healthcare consumers, and we do this, of course, through mid-evidence, but also through participation in clinical research. So everybody I think without exception who does a clinical research trial will come out of the experience and say that they just know a lot more about how the whole health care system works and what to trust in health care and how to find really credible information about things that would help them and their families. So again, that's part of our mission and again, let's say that a part of our mission is to help people navigate the science exploitation that's ubiquitous.

Kevin Geddings: 4:04

Well, once again, if you have any questions about that you know. Another good source for learning about, you know, supplement information and other chronic health conditions would be to check out medevidence. com. Right, Dr. Koren?

Dr. Michael Koren: 4:16

Absolutely, and again, that's our concept of having discussions, typically between two very knowledgeable physicians, and the public can eavesdrop on these discussions and get a good sense for what's true, what's not true, what we know, what we don't know, and also the process about how we learn about the things that we don't know. So it's a fascinating discussion. I love being part of it and hopefully other people appreciate these conversations.

Kevin Geddings: 4:42

Yeah, it's so different than you know so many folks. I was talking to some people over the holiday weekend that get their, which is so aggravating. They'll get their health information or information about various medicines or vaccines or what have you from an influencer on Instagram or one person is talking. We don't have. We have no clue about their credentials. We have no clue about what actual research they're referencing and there's also no discussion back and forth, right. So I know it's easy to consume that when it's one person delivering it, but the approach that MedEvidence takes is much more comprehensive and much more trustworthy.

Dr. Michael Koren: 5:14

Well, I appreciate that and I would wholeheartedly agree.

Kevin Geddings: 5:18

Well, once again, we appreciate you, Dr. Michael Koren. We hope you have a good day, you doing okay coming off the 4th of July. Tough to get started on a Monday morning.

Dr. Michael Koren: 5:26

Yeah, it is, but I want to do a shout-out for WSOS. I had a really wonderful experience on the 4th. Some friends invited us on their boat. We took it out in the water in St. Augustine to watch the firework display. We took it out in the water in St. Augustine to watch the firework display, which was absolutely fabulous. We had the best seats in the house from the boat and they were playing WSOS during the entire firework presentation. So thank you, kevin, for the great accompaniment to an incredible show.

Kevin Geddings: 5:52

Well, thank you, Dr. Koren. We'll talk with you next week. Be safe out there, okay.

Announcer: 5:57

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