🎙Ask a Doc: What is Lyme Disease & How to Treat & Prevent Ep 142

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What is Lyme disease, how to we treat it and what are the strides being made toward its prevention?  Dr. Michael Koren, a renowned cardiologist and medical researcher, explores the mystery of Lyme disease—a tick-borne illness first discovered in the 70s and 80s. He sheds light on its causative bacteria, Borrelia burgdorferi the symptoms, and the cruciality of early detection and treatment. Then he dives into the hopeful future of Lyme disease prevention with current research and development efforts for Lyme disease vaccines. If you're a hiker, an outdoors person, or reside in an area with a dense deer tick population, this could be a game-changer. Dr. Koren invites you to participate in this monumental change by participating in clinical research. Join us and contribute to mitigating the debilitating consequences of this disease. After all, prevention is better than cure, right?

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

Have a question for Dr. Koren? Email him at [e-mail]

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Episode Transcript

Narrator (00:01):
Welcome to MedEvidence , where we help you navigate the
truth behind medical researchwith unbiased, evidence-proven
facts, powered by ENCOREResearch Group and hosted by
cardiologist and top medicalresearcher, Dr.
Michael Koren.
Dr.
Koran, I heard there is a Lymedisease vaccine being developed
for all of us frequent hikersand outdoorsmen.

(00:22):
What's your take on that?

Dr. Michael Koren (00:24):
Well, thank you for the question and
interesting you bring that upbecause to my knowledge there is
no approved Lyme diseasevaccine.
However, we're working on it soas we speak, there's some real
excitement about this.
So just for everybody out there, lyme disease is a tick-borne
illness that was originallydiscovered in Lyme, Connecticut.

(00:44):
So interesting little triviafact, it was discovered in the
1970s and 80s and the bacteriathat the tick transmits to
humans is called Borrelia, andit's actually a Borrelia species
that was named after thediscoverer of that particular
bacteria named Dr.
Burgdorfer.
So it's called Borreliaburgdorferi, and this is the

(01:08):
bacteria that goes through atick, or an ictity species that
causes the problem.
So typically what happens?
You're out there hiking, youmay not be covered up, you get a
tick bite.
The tick then will eventuallycause a rash to occur, which is
the first stage of the illness.
Then it could be associatedwith a fever and sometimes
chills.
And if you don't discover itwhich is very common because

(01:30):
sometimes you get tick bites inplaces that are not obvious you
can get to a second phase oreven a third phase, and then it
gets very, very tricky todiagnose and often people have
these longstanding inflammatoryconditions that allude initial
evaluations and that leads tothe need for a long-term
treatment approach.

(01:50):
So if you catch it early, youcan take antibiotics that knock
out that bacteria.
But if you don't catch it earlywhich is common then you're
prone to getting this long-termLyme disease syndrome, which can
really be very debilitating.
So people who are at high riskfor exposure for example, people
are hikers or people areoutdoors a lot, especially in
certain communities that areknown to have a lot of deer

(02:11):
ticks, for example we wouldadvise that you keep your eyes
and ears open about thisclinical research, which will be
able to give you a shot so thatyou're not prone to the
devastating consequences of thisdisease.
And if you're in an area whereyou have access to a center
that's actually studying theLyme disease vaccine, give us a

(02:32):
shout.
We may be able to get youinvolved.