Photo: Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images
Donald Trump visited Walter Reed Military Medical Center last Tuesday for his third “annual” physical in 13 months. So is there anything we should know about the health of the 79-year-old president, who was recently diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency and regularly appears in public with bruises and weird rashes?
Nope! It was a “PERFECT PHYSICAL,” according to messages Trump and the White House immediately posted to social media, even before there was time to fully process his lab work:
The president offered a little more detail over the weekend, bragging on Truth Social that he “scored a perfect 30 out of 30” on an “approved, high difficulty, Cognitive Test,” which is “considered ‘extreme intelligence’”:
A perfect score on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment is actually considered “does not have cognitive impairment,” like dementia. But Trump is right that “Dumocrats” will not be surprised by this development, as he’s been bragging about how he “ACED” this test for years.
Still curious about the president’s health? Well, according to this illegible graphic posted by the White House, the president’s doctor, Dr. Sean Barbabella, found him to be in “excellent health”:
Here’s a readable version of the three-page health summary Barbabella released on Friday evening:
Though that may not answer your questions either. As The Wall Street Journal noted, the report doesn’t offer much detail, even on areas where we know Trump has had health difficulties:
Trump’s most recent report describes that he has “slight lower leg swelling” and notes “improvement from last year” when the chronic venous insufficiency was diagnosed. The report gives no reason for the improvement.
The bruising is attributed, once again, to “frequent handshaking in the setting of aspirin use for cardiovascular prevention.” The letter does not say how much aspirin Trump is taking (by his own admission, it’s way more than his doctors recommend). There’s no mention of Trump’s weird neck rash, which was explained as the result of an unknown “preventative skin treatment” prescribed by Barbabella in February.
Doctors who reviewed the report told the Journal Trump’s cholesterol numbers were suspiciously good, and a lot of detail was missing from the section on his cardiac health:
… To fully assess the president’s cardiac health, other doctors said they would want to see a calcium score, a description of any plaque in the arteries, and a CAD-RADS score to assess narrowing in the arteries. The report simply stated there is “no arterial obstruction or structural abnormalities” in the heart or major blood vessels, which could simply mean there isn’t a blockage, physicians said.
Additional detail from the echocardiogram, such as the ejection fraction—the percentage of blood pumped with each heart contraction—would also provide a fuller picture of the president’s health. Trump’s 2018 report did include a measurement of his ejection fraction.
So basically, all we’ve learned is that Trump’s health is the same as it’s been since 2016, when he dictated a letter to Dr. Harold Bornstein (RIP) declaring himself the “healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”
