May is National Older Americans Month. During this time, we often think about our grandparents, relatives and friends. While many seniors live healthy, active lives, there are also those who struggle to live on fixed incomes. For these people, there are difficult choices to make including whether to pay for healthcare or prescriptions and buying groceries.

Although food insecurity affects people of all ages, seniors are particularly vulnerable because they have unique nutritional needs related to aging and/or medical conditions and often have limited income. Because seniors often need medication to maintain their health, many elderly Americans must forgo the foods they need to stay healthy.

According to Feeding America’s study Hunger in America 2010, 30 percent of seniors who rely on local food pantries for help report that they have had to choose between paying for food and paying for medical care. Among food pantry clients 65 and older, more than half reported needing food assistance on a monthly basis, the highest of any age group.

A newly published report, Spotlight on Senior Hunger, indicates that in 2011, almost one in every 12 seniors above the age of 60 in the United States was food insecure. That represents 4.8 million seniors nationwide, which is more than double the number of food insecure seniors in 2001.

The Food Bank of Yolo County provides much-needed food assistance to older adults through direct distribution programs and through our network of non-profit partner agencies. By collaborating with partners including Elderly Nutrition and Yolo County Senior Centers, the Food Bank is able to provide healthy, nutritious food to older clients who need it most.

According to Health in Aging, malnutrition is increasing among the older population. This can lead to fatigue, anemia, infections, and skin problems. Eating healthy, nutritious foods can help. Studies show that a good diet in later years reduces the risk of osteoporosis, high blood pressure, heart disease and cancer. Here are a few tips for eating well as an older adult:

* Choose foods with Vitamin B12, including fortified cereals to help your brain, blood, and nervous system
* Eat foods with Vitamin D, including salmon, tuna, and fortified orange juice to promote bone health
* Reduce your salt intake to control blood pressure
* Eat breakfast and do not skip meals
* Choose high fiber foods to keep you healthy and regular
* Eat fruits and vegetables – fresh, canned, or frozen

With widespread community support, the Food Bank is working to ensure that seniors in need have access to nutritious food, including fresh fruits and vegetables. If you are interested in assisting with this effort, visit www.foodbankyc.org to find out how to host a food drive, volunteer, or provide other support.

Learn more about health and nutrition for seniors by visiting www.nutrition.gov/life-stages/seniors or www.healthinaging.org.

Read the Spotlight on Senior Hunger 2011 report put together by Feeding America and the National Foundation to End Senior Hunger at http://feedingamerica.org/seniorspotlight.

— Amanda McCarthy is the director of programs for the Food Bank of Yolo County

Just how much attention your surgeon pays to tasks in the operating room can be affected by a number of distractions, recent research suggests.

First off, operating rooms are not libraries. Equipment can be noisy, colleagues chatty and many surgeons work with music in the background. Not everyone may mute, or even not answer, their personal communications devices.

Researchers at the University of Kentucky Medical Center set up a test using 15 surgeons with one to 30 years of experience. Their ability to understand and repeat words was checked under four conditions: quiet; noise filtered through a surgical mask; and operating-room background noise both with and without music. Subjects were tested both while they were engaged in a surgical task and when they were not.

The results, published in the May issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons, showed that comprehension of speech went down in the presence of background noise when the words were unpredictable, but that music was a significant barrier to speech comprehension only when the surgeon was engaged in a task.

Music in the operating room has long been a source of disagreement among surgeons, anesthesiologists and caregivers. Many argue that sounds distract from the task, but others insist music can be soothing and help the surgical team focus.

Another study, published last year by researchers at Oregon State University and the Oregon Health and Sciences University, showed that young surgeons in their second, third or research year of residency made mistakes nearly half the time when they were distracted during a simulated gall-bladder removal.

Eight of 18 surgical residents made serious errors when distracted by noises like a cellphone ringing, an instrument tray being dropped, being asked questions about another patient or a political discussion among caregivers at the edge of the OR.

Mistakes were particularly likely when the test was run in the afternoon. Major errors during the minimally invasive surgery included damage to organs, ducts and arteries, some of which could lead to a patient’s death in a real surgery.

But only one of the surgeons made a mistake on the simulator when there were no distractions.

Research done on a group of medical students at Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey, Pa., last year added the element of sleep deprivation to simulated surgery.

In a study published last year in The American Journal of Surgery, the scientists reported that students trained on a virtual-reality simulator were able to perform a previously learned task or learn a new one as well when they were sleep-deprived as when they were well-rested.

When the students were presented with a new unexpected task — counting flashes on a screen — both the tired and the well-rested handled the extra task, but the sleep-deprived had to exert more brain effort to achieve the same level of performance.

Other studies suggest that a surgeon’s lack of sleep can have severe consequences. One 2009 report in The Journal of the American Medical Association showed a significant increase in the risk of complications for patients who had elective daytime surgery performed by a surgeon who had slept less than six hours during a previous night on call.

Concern about fatigue in the OR prompted one group of Harvard Medical School sleep specialists and ethicists to suggest in a 2010 editorial that sleep-deprived physicians be required to disclose their condition to patients and get their consent before going ahead with an elective procedure. Their New England Journal of Medicine article proposed that the disclosure mandate apply to both surgeons and anesthesiologists.

— Contact Scripps health and science writer Lee Bowman at BowmanL@shns.com

It’s a germy world out there. Microbes prevail in our environment from cloud top to subterranean urban haunts to the tongue and paws of the family dog, a trio of recent studies reveal.

The research is part of a larger effort to better understand where people pick up the roughly 100 trillion microorganisms that live on and inside each of us, some causing disease, but most harmless or aiding our own biological functions.

First, NASA-sponsored researchers found that bacteria can thrive from 25,000 feet — cruising altitude for commercial jets — up to about 46,000 feet, based on sampling done over the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea in 2010.

While humans can’t survive at those heights without oxygen and protection against extreme cold, the high, thin air was found to be hospitable to more than 300 different types of bacteria (and a few fungi).

Each cubic meter of air measured contained roughly 150,000 cells, with anywhere from 60 to 100 percent of them alive. Samples were taken before, during and after the passage of two major hurricanes — Earl and Karl — through the area.

While the diversity of microbes was much greater in samples grabbed during and after the hurricanes’ passage, a consistent group of 17 bacteria was found in every sample.

The study, led by scientists at Georgia Tech and published online in January by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, helps fill in some important gaps about life high in the atmosphere.

Not only do the bacteria join dust and other material in aiding the formation of clouds and precipitation, but the discovery that so many can live at high altitudes also shows germs swept up by large storms may be viable after they’ve been swept around the planet.

In one of two studies by researchers from the University of Colorado at Boulder, scientists developed what amounts to an air-sampling “Big Gulp” to do a comprehensive test of the microbes inhabiting New York City’s subways. Collecting each sample took only 20 minutes, compared to the hours needed for conventional methods.

What they found after analyzing the contents of a couple of cubic meters of air collected a few flights down from the surface is that New York subway air isn’t much different from the air at sidewalk level. The main differences were that subway air had a bit more bacteria normally found on human skin — no surprise to anyone who’s been packed onto a 6 train at rush hour — and about double the density of fungal material than air “up top.” The researchers suspect rotting wood contributes to that discrepancy.

The research, published online last month by the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology, is particularly helpful in setting a baseline of subway germ counts to possibly aid in monitoring any attempt to mount a biological attack on the transit system.

Another UC-Boulder-led team reported last month on the canine-human bacterial exchange, sampling 159 people and 36 dogs in 60 families, each with at least one couple between the ages of 26 and 87. Swabs were taken from the tongue, forehead and palms on the people, fur on the head and all four paws on the dogs, plus fecal samples from all.

It turned out that people with both dogs and children had more bacteria in common with their pets. Also, spouses who shared a dog also had more similar skin bacteria between them than those without a pooch in the mix.

There were a number of other age and environmental differences, with parents sharing more tongue and gut microbes with their own children than with other children, but only starting after age 3. The weakest connection was the father-to-infant sharing of germs on the forehead and palms.

The study was published in the online journal eLIFE.

It’s estimated that nearly two-thirds of U.S. households have a cat or dog. Scientists say adding household pets to the microbial mix is important as they try to understand such issues as the development of children’s immune systems, allergies and, perhaps, autoimmune diseases, as well as the direct spread of some diseases. At the same time, our pets are susceptible to picking up some infections from humans, particularly the flu.

— Contact Scripps health and medical writer Lee Bowman at BowmanL@shns.com.

One of the biggest risks for pets is being left inside a parked car, even just for a few minutes—and even if the window is cracked. Despite outside temperatures that don’t seem scorching, the greenhouse effect of a parked car can intensify the heat. Temperatures in the 70′s and 80′s can easily get well up over 100 degrees in a car within minutes.

Pets should never be left inside the cab of a parked car, even just to run into a store “for a minute or two.” If your pet cannot come inside the store with you, or cannot be secured with a leash or kennel outside (ideally in the shade), it should not come along for the ride.

A parked car is not the only chance for a pet to get overheated. While outdoor cats can usually find shelter, and are usually not exercising much (especially in the heat), the same cannot always be said of dogs. A dog fenced or chained in a yard with no shelter can suffer heat stroke. Similarly, a dog taken for a long walk, that chases a ball, or does any other activity in the hot weather can easily get overheated.

Signs of heat stroke in pets include excessive panting, lethargy, and weakness. Heat stroke is a medical emergency, and pets may die from it despite aggressive treatment. It is best to avoid it by providing appropriate shade and water for outdoor pets, and by not promoting strenuous activity on hot days.

The sun provides other problems for pets, especially as temperatures rise. Hot pavement can cause burns to the bottom of the feet, so long walks on paved surfaces are not recommended unless the dog is wearing protective footwear.

Short-haired animals, especially those with non-pigmented skin, can get sunburned just as humans do. Additionally, certain types of skin cancer in animals are induced or exacerbated by solar radiation. Reducing sun exposure through shelter, clothing, and/or sunscreen can help prevent some of these conditions.

But sun-related complications are not the only problems that pets face during the warmer months of the year. Increased outdoor activity, although enriching, means increased risk for injury or illness.

Foxtails are a fact of life in northern California in the summertime. These plant awns can attach themselves to an animal’s coat, and can burrow deeper from there. They can find their way into the skin, ears, eyes, nose, mouth, and genitals; those that dive deeper can affect internal organs such as the lungs or liver. Animals spending time outdoors around foxtail-rich areas should be checked regularly for signs of swelling or injury, and any free foxtails should be removed from the coat.

Rattlesnakes are also prevalent during the warmer months. Owners may see their pet get bit, or may just find a pet with a large painful swelling. Rattlesnake venom can cause localized inflammation and necrosis, and can lead to systemic organ failure. A vaccine is available for dogs that helps neutralize the toxin, but any animal (vaccinated or not) should be seen immediately by a veterinarian if it has been bit. Rattlesnake avoidance classes may deter some dogs from approaching the snakes in the wild.

Fleas, ticks, and mosquitoes are also out in full force as temperatures rise. Appropriate parasite control measures can help minimize the chance of infestation and secondary diseases (such as Lyme disease and heartworm).

This is not to suggest that pets need to be quarantined in an enclosed, air-conditioned room at all times during the spring and summer. However, proper precautions can help a pet enjoy the warm weather while being as safe as possible.

— Keith Rode is a veterinarian at Woodland Veterinary Hospital and a graduate of UC Davis. For more information, call 530-666-2461

From 7 p.m. on April 24, 2011, to 7 a.m. on April 26, I did not eat. The short fast was intended, along with the fasting of many others, to bring awareness to proposed cuts to government food programs. For me, it also brought a direct experience of an insidious aspect of malnutrition, an experience that deeply moved me.

My children reacted quite differently to my fast. At meal times, Andy (10) was concerned for me and encouraged me to eat, too, whereas Teddy (12) suggested that to satisfy my curiosity what I really needed to do instead was to eat some food each day, but not much, for an entire month. I was not going to do that!

I knew I would not have a genuine experience of food insecurity. For example, throughout my fast I fed my children. What would it be like to not be able to do that? I could only begin to imagine. I became aware of what a blessing it is to be able to put breakfast on the table for my boys.

For most of the day, all I experienced was hunger as a mild irritant. My day progressed as usual until about 2:30 when maintaining my focus became quite difficult. Thinking felt like a tremendous effort. I gave up what I was trying to do.

As a scientist, I highly value the ability to think. As a teacher I have no greater joy than to see young minds developing. As a human being I strongly felt the terrible unfairness faced by a child who does not have enough to eat, a child who does not have the fuel she needs to fully use her mind and thus cannot develop to her full potential.

According to Feeding America about 17 percent of the population of Yolo County is food-insecure, an insecurity that occurs amidst an abundance of agriculture! I looked up the local Food Bank and told them I would put on a benefit barbecue, asking friends to bring food or cash donations. I called it “Grilling for Groceries” or G4G 2011.

We raised $645 in cash and 120 pounds of food, and had a great time doing it! By leveraging the food donations from large companies like Walmart as well as from local farmers, the food bank converts each dollar donated into eight meals.

I was grateful for this organization that could so effectively utilize the money we raised. When I was asked last summer to serve on their board, I jumped at the opportunity.

There are many ways you can help. Donate food or funds. Host a benefit barbecue. Organize a team entry into the Thanksgiving Day 5K fun run, “The Running of the Turkeys.” Connect with the gleaners at www.villageharvest.org/davis. For more ideas, visit www.foodbankyc.org or contact me. Whatever you can do, I promise you you’ll be very glad you did it.

— Lloyd Knox is a professor of physics at UC Davis, board member at the Food Bank of Yolo County, a Davis resident since 2001, and has no prior track record of civic responsibility.