The best exercises to lose excess pounds; Plus, drug-resistant gonorrhea strain reported, and more health news

It’s no secret: The standard American diet is at the root of the obesity epidemic and many of its associated diseases.

But why is American food so unhealthy? It’s not just that Americans eat too much, which they do, but it’s also what they eat that’s unhealthy: fat, sugar, salt and ultra-processed foods.

According to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, the average American diet consists of excess salt, saturated fat, refined grains, calories from solid fats and added sugars.

Americans also eat fewer vegetables, fruits, whole grains, dairy products and oils than recommended. Nearly 42% of American adults are obese, statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show.

If you’re looking to quit smoking cigarettes and tobacco products, start here. We know it’s a tough road, but there are now many research-backed tools available to help you kick the tobacco habit for good.

Cigarettes are probably the first things that come to mind when you think of tobacco products, but cigars, dip, pipes and e-cigarettes (vaping) also fall under the tobacco umbrella. (Even though there’s no tobacco in vaping, there’s nicotine, so it’s still considered a tobacco product.)

Smoking tobacco products damages almost every organ in the body, which is why the health benefits of quitting smoking are exponential and begin the minute you extinguish your last tobacco product.

When it comes to picking the best exercise to lose weight, there is no one right answer.

That’s because the right answer is variety, mixing and matching types of exercise to keep the body guessing and improving.

“The body adapts to the demands we put on it,” said Dr. Russell Camhi, who works in primary care sports medicine for Northwell Health’s Orthopaedic Institute in East Meadow, N.Y.

“If we do the same exercise regimen over and over, results are bound to plateau,” he explained. “Now this doesn’t mean you have to change exercises every day or every week, but a little variety will help the body change and grow.”

The key to weight loss is a blend of exercise and nutrition, with the latter responsible for about 80% of the heavy lifting, according to Camhi.

Doctors are seeing an alarming increase in cases of a specific genital malformation in male babies, and new research suggests environmental factors might be at play.

The malformation is known as hypospadias, where the opening of the urethra is not at the tip of the penis, but on the underside of the organ.

In the study, scientists identified a direct link between hypospadias tissue samples and the presence of epigenetic alterations — changes to the molecular factors and processes around DNA that determine how genes behave.

“Previous researchers have done extensive analyses and not found any kind of genetic DNA sequence mutations that correlate with the presence of the disease, so there has always been a big question mark regarding where it comes from,” explained senior study author Michael Skinner, a professor of biology at Washington State University.

Two cases of a new strain of gonorrhea reported in Massachusetts were at least partly resistant to several antibiotics, state officials announced Thursday.

“The discovery of this strain of gonorrhea is a serious public health concern which DPH [Department of Health], the CDC, and other health departments have been vigilant about detecting,” Margret Cooke, head of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, said in a statement. “We urge all sexually active people to be regularly tested for sexually transmitted infections and to consider reducing the number of their sexual partners and increasing their use of condoms when having sex.”

The patients in the two Massachusetts cases did improve after getting injections of the primary drug currently recommended for the sexually transmitted disease, ceftriaxone. Massachusetts health officials are now working with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to test other samples from other gonorrhea cases in the state.

While childhood obesity gets a lot of attention, some kids struggle with the opposite issue — they have trouble gaining weight.

So, how can parents know if their child is “too skinny?”

While the best resource is likely a child’s pediatrician, experts have also weighed in on the topic.

“Underlying health conditions can result in children and adolescents being underweight. Additionally, underweight can indicate malnutrition,” the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted in a recent study about the prevalence of underweight kids in the United States.

Just over 4% of children and adolescents aged 2 to 19 were underweight in the United States in 2018, according to the study.

Whether your job is remote or takes you to an office, you’ll feel better and offset joint pain by having a workspace that’s designed to work for you instead of against you.

The biggest problem isn’t sitting itself but holding a single position for long periods often with a posture that causes strain, such as leaning forward, said Jen Horonjeff, an ergonomics and human factors consultant in New York City. (Ergonomics refers to office comfort and efficiency).

“People think the opposite of sitting is standing. Unless you’re moving around when you stand up, that’s not the case,” Horonjeff said in a news release from the Arthritis Foundation. “The real opposite of both sitting or standing still is moving. And moving frequently is what we need to be doing to avoid causing work-related pain, muscle strain and fatigue.”

A recent study suggests that Parkinson’s disease, in which parts of the brain are progressively damaged over many years, may actually start in the gut.

Nearly 30% of the gut bacteria in patients with Parkinson’s disease differed from those without the disease, according to the study from British and U.S. researchers.

Study co-author Ayse Demirkan, a senior lecturer at the University of Surrey, noted that death and impairments due to Parkinson’s are increasing faster than any other neurological disorder worldwide. Diagnosed cases have more than doubled in the past 25 years.

“This is very concerning as there is no known cure,” Demirkan said in a university news release.