Key points from today’s guests:

Dr. Steve Stites, chief medical officer, The University of Kansas Health System; executive vice chancellor, The University of Kansas Medical Center

• Food insecurity food insecurity is one of many social determinants of health -- all the non-medical factors that influence your health, like where you live, your insurance status, access to transportation, air quality, and stress.
• Some say access to healthy food is 80-85 percent of what determines your health.
• There are a lot of reasons to have food insecurity. You may not have enough money to buy food, you may not have an automobile to get to a grocery store, you may live in what's called the food desert where there are no grocery stores for many miles.
• There is a new program that lets doctors help prescribe healthy food to people who are in need.

Bastian Wade, experienced food insecurity

• When he was at the Health System, he was screened for food insecurity and was contacted by a case manager.
• The case manager made sure he had all the resources he needed and then reached out later to let him know about the Fresh Rx Program.
• He said just knowing that we had the ability to go get fresh fruits and vegetables was a game-changer.
• His family has been able to try new recipes and it has changed their eating habits for the good.
• Bastian said being able to show people how to eat things can be very important because they now know what they can do with it, and it really opens people's world to different, healthier foods.

Dr. Cheryl Gibson, Ph.D., professor, Internal Medicine, The University of Kansas Medical Center

• In Kansas, about one in seven individuals indicate that they're food insecure.
• Closer to home in Wyandotte County, up to 18 percent are food insecure. It's a big problem, especially in communities of color. Black individuals and Hispanic or Latino individuals are up to 25 percent food insecure.
• The Fresh RX Program started in 2023 as a USDA funded program. We partnered with a number of different clinics to help us recruit patients who are Medicaid recipients and are pre-hypertensive or hypertensive or pre-diabetic or diabetic and have experienced food insecurity in the past year.
• Enrollees receive a specifically designed card loaded with a preset amount to only purchase fresh fruits and vegetables, tax free.
• We have monthly nutrition education meetings with our participants, led by registered dieticians. We have ongoing communications with them to help with food purchasing tips, food storage, and food preparation.
• The “Veggie Meter” laser measures skin carotenoids, which indicates food and vegetable intake.
• So far, 59 percent of the sample actually reduced their hemoglobin, 43 percent lowered their blood pressure, and we’ve seen better general health and mental health reports.

Dr. Branden Comfort, M.D., internal medicine physician, The University of Kansas Health System

• We screen everybody at The University of Kansas Health System for food insecurity, and about four to five percent of patients each year will tell us that is something they're struggling with.
• That equates to 8,000-9,000 patients every single year that we're interacting with.
• We know that this problem is going to lead to downstream effects on their health, including diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease. Food insecurity is a root cause of a lot of these things.
• We're going to do what we can to try to address it and I think this program is one of many that's being offered.
• Another way is that we have a refrigerator in our clinic that is stocked with fresh food that we can share with patients experiencing food insecurity. We can give them a week's worth of healthy food, and we've given out about 600 to 700 bags of food over the last several years.

Dr. Kristina Bridges, Ph.D., research assistant professor, The University of Kansas Medical Center

• It takes a community approach because it's a community problem. We have major disparities and inequities when we look at food insecurity.
• Food insecurity itself is a symptom of larger issues like unemployment, lack of affordable housing, and low-wage jobs.
• Nationally, food insecurity was right around 11 percent before the pandemic, and now we're at 13.5 percent nationally. If you look at communities of color, it's over 20 percent, which is unacceptable.
• Food insecurity is not an individual's problem. It's a problem for all of us and our whole community, and it's everybody's job to address it.

Infectious Disease Updates

Dr. Dana Hawkinson, medical director, Infection Prevention & Control, The University of Kansas Health System

• We have entered respiratory viral season which consists of viral infections such as RSV, influenza, other common cough and cold viruses, and unfortunately also COVID.
• We had a recent high or peak of viral circulation and illness a couple of months ago, it has significantly improved, but it is still circulating out there in the environment, probably even more than influenza and RSV at this point in time.
• In the last week or so, we have seen influenza activity increase slightly, but it is overall low in the country and locally here in our community.
• It is never too late to get vaccinated and other things that we can do to help reduce the chance of infection include frequent and adequate hand hygiene, and avoiding putting your hands in your eyes, your nose, or your mouth.

Thursday, Nov. 21 at 8 a.m. is the next All Things Heart. Feeling jittery and nervous for no good reason, one patient knew something was physically wrong. While his diagnosis was common, his solution would be a first.

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