Trump boasts about his health, but his own statements reveal worrying elements | International

Few things are more irritating than having your physical and mental health questioned. At 79 years old, the oldest president of the United States when sworn into office proclaims that he is as fit as a bull and that he enjoys impeccable mental acuity. This Friday he boasted again on social media that he had passed his latest cognitive tests. But, meanwhile, images of his public events have shown him nodding more than once and twice, his right hand usually hides a large bruise under a thick layer of makeup and his own statements reveal worrying elements. Like, for example, he consumes a daily dose of aspirin four times higher than what his doctors recommend.

“The White House doctors have just reported that I am in PERFECT HEALTH and that I have gotten an A (which means I got 100% of the questions right) for the third time in a row on my cognitive exam, a test that no other president, or previous vice president, was willing to undergo,” Trump wrote on his social network, Truth, this Friday.

“Postscript, I firmly believe that anyone running for president or vice president should be required to complete a robust, meaningful, and proven quality cognitive test,” he added. “Our great Country cannot be managed by STUPID or INCOMPETENT PEOPLE!”

The president of the United States suffers from , a common ailment in elderly people, and takes medication to control cholesterol. Their diet is abundant in red meat and salt. He doesn’t exercise, other than playing golf, his favorite sport. He sleeps little, can be seen nodding at times and sometimes needs questions or comments repeated to him in a louder voice.

But Trump boasts that his “excellent genes” give him exceptional physical and mental fitness. He also insistently compares himself to his predecessor, Joe Biden, three and a half years older than him and whom he mocks by calling him “Sleepy Joe” and ensuring that he governed with his head lost, to the point that others signed decrees and laws for him with the help of an automatic signature machine. The president assures that he does maintain a high level of daily activity, something his team corroborates. The Republican appears before the press several times a week, a much more intense pace than his predecessors.

Trump flew into a rage last month when the newspaper The New York Times He published a profile that contradicted the narrative of wasteful health that he wants to project, and pointed out that during the last 12 months he has shown signs of aging.

The newspaper explained that, throughout this first year in office, the magnate has reduced his presence in public activities, he is seen dozing at events at the White House and the swelling in his legs caused by venous insufficiency was evident last summer. In October he underwent a new medical examination, the second since his inauguration – it is usual for presidents to have a check-up every year, if no health problems arise – and he mentioned that he had undergone a magnetic resonance imaging test, which is used to examine in depth the state of the soft organs.

In an interview given to the newspaper and published this Thursday, the president, who will turn 80 on June 14, sought to eliminate any shadow of doubt about his physical strength after that profile. But the explanations he gives raise other doubts.

To justify the persistent bruises that appear on his hands, especially the right one, and which the White House attributes to the frequent squeezes he must give, Trump blames his daily consumption of aspirin. And it reveals that it is much higher than recommended. He has maintained this practice for a quarter of a century, he says, out of “superstition.”

His doctors, he explains, “would prefer that he take the smaller dose (81 milligrams). I take the larger one (325 milligrams), but I’ve been doing it for years, and what it does is cause bruising.” The president consumes a diet rich in red meat and fried potatoes, and controls his cholesterol by taking rosuvastatins and ezetimibe daily; He claims that with such a high dose he wants to make his blood thinner.

“They say aspirin is good for thinning the blood, and I don’t want thick blood running through my heart,” he told the conservative newspaper. “I want good, very liquid blood in my heart. Do you understand?” Doctors usually prescribe a small daily dose of this medication to patients with vascular problems to prevent blood clots. Using much more than recommended can cause clotting problems and spills.

The president and his personal doctor, Dr. Sean Barbabella, also specify that the “advanced imaging” test that Trump underwent in October at the Walter Reed military hospital in Washington was not an MRI, but a CT-scan, a simpler test, to completely rule out vascular problems. The Republican declares that he regrets having agreed to that exam. “I would have been much better off if they hadn’t done it, because the fact that I had it made people wonder, ‘Oh wow, is there something weird going on?’ Well, nothing strange happens.”

The images of Trump in which he appears to be dozing also show how the president sometimes has difficulty hearing questions from journalists or comments from his guests at mass events that other people around him can distinguish without difficulty. At a dinner with executives of technology companies in September, television showed live how his wife Melania repeated a reporter’s question that the president had not understood. But in Thursday’s interview, the Republican denies that he suffers from hearing problems and maintains that he only has difficulty when there are many people talking at the same time. He also rejects the fact that he gets drowsy at mass events and assures that what happens is only that photographers capture him when he is “blinking.”

It is not the first time that controversy surrounds Trump’s health. During his first term (2017-2021), his doctors ignored in their reports that the president had undergone a colonoscopy. When he contracted Covid, he presented his symptoms as much milder than they actually were. The Wall Street Journal reveals that his skin is so delicate that the current attorney general, Pam Bondi, accidentally cut him with her ring in a high-five during the Republican convention in 2024, in an incident that alarmed those who witnessed it.

Trump also details his refusal to exercise outside of . According to him, he finds it “boring.” “Walking or running on a treadmill for hours is something that some people do, but it doesn’t work for me.” He also reveals that at one point he resorted to compression socks to treat his swollen ankles, but eventually discarded them. “I didn’t like them,” he declares. Instead, he tries to get up from the table from time to time and take short walks around the Oval Office, another option that doctors recommend.

“There will be a day when I lack energy; it happens to everyone, but with A PERFECT PHYSICAL EXAM AND A COMPLETE COGNITIVE TEST (which I passed with excellence) RECENTLY CONDUCTED, it is certainly not now!” said the president in November, after The New York Times will publish your profile.