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on Sep 15th, 2016 and filed under Trump doctor’s letter: He takes cholesterol drug, is overweight but is in ‘excellent’ health – Washington Post
In a Sept. 15 appearance on “The Dr. Oz Show,” Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump handed Dr. Mehmet Oz a sheet of paper listing the results of a recent physical. (The Associated Press)
This post has been updated.
Donald Trump released a letter from his personal doctor on Thursday that summarizes his latest physical exam, saying he takes a cholesterol-lowering drug and is overweight but overall is in “excellent physical health.”
Trump discussed the results of the exam on “The Dr. Oz Show” on Thursday afternoon, saying that presidential candidates have an “obligation” to voters to be healthy and that he feels like he is still in his 30s.
“I don’t think you can do the work if you’re not healthy,” Trump, 70, said on the health talk-show, adding that the last time he was hospitalized was when he had his appendix removed at age 11.
[Trump admits he wouldn’t release his medical results if they were ‘bad’]
The one-page letter is signed by Trump’s longtime doctor, Harold N. Bornstein, a gastroenterological specialist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York. The letter states that Trump is 6 foot 3 inches tall and weighs 236 pounds, making him overweight for his height. The letter also lists the results of recent lab tests, which Bornstein says are all within the normal range. The letter says that Trump takes a statin, a drug for lowering cholesterol, along with a low dose of aspirin.
During the talk show, Trump said that both of his parents lived to an old age and many of his mother’s relatives in Scotland lived into their 90s. The letter states that there “is no family history of premature cardiac or neoplastic disease.”
While the letter released by Trump gives more information on his health and physical makeup than previously known, it does not constitute his medical records nor does it give extensive detail about past health matters.
Trump discussed the document with talk-show host and surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz during a taping in New York on Wednesday that aired on Thursday afternoon. Oz is popular nationally but his credibility has been questioned by critics. Trump disclosed the one-page letter to The Washington Post on Thursday soon before the campaign released it publicly. In the letter, which is dated Sept. 13, Bornstein states that Trump has been under his care since 1980, and sits for an annual physical exam.
Bornstein’s letter this week lacked the creativity of a letter he signed in December that called Trump’s health “extraordinary” and declared he would be “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.” Bornstein told NBC News last month that he wrote the letter in about five minutes as a Trump associate waited to collect it, though he stood by his glowing assessment.
In the letter released on Thursday, Trump’s “laboratory results” from a blood test and other exams are also given. He has a cholesterol level of 169, with his level of high-density lipoproteins at 63, his low-density lipoproteins at 94.
The businessman’s blood pressure is 116 over 70. His blood sugar level is 99 milligrams per deciliter. Trump’s level of triglycerides, which are a type of fat in blood, is 61 milligrams per deciliter. And his prostate-specific antigen level is measured as 0.15.
“His liver function and thyroid function tests are all within the normal range,” Bornstein writes, adding that “his last colonoscopy was performed on July 10, 2013 which was normal and revealed no polyps.”
Trump’s latest electrocardiogram test and chest X-ray took place in April 2016 and were “normal.”
With regard to Trump’s heart, Bornstein writes that “his cardiac evaluation included a transthoracic echocardiogram” in December 2014 and “this study was reported within the range of normal.”
Bornstein notes that there is “no family history of premature cardiac or neoplastic disease” and that Trump’s parents, Fred and Mary, “lived into their late 80s and 90s.”
Trump’s testosterone level is 441.6.
[Despite gestures, Trump is still the least transparent U.S. presidential candidate in modern history]
In a Sept. 15 appearance on “The Dr. Oz Show,” Dr. Mehmet Oz asked Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump about his stamina, and whether he’d have the vigor to serve as the nation’s oldest-ever president. (The Associated Press)
Speaking on NBC’s “Today” on Thursday, Oz said that based on Bornstein’s letter, “If I as doctor had a patient like him, I would think he had good health for a man of his age and I’d send him on his way.” But he has not tested Trump on his own.
Trump’s activity comes as Democratic rival Hillary Clinton is returning to the campaign trail following a bout of pneumonia.
Trump, who has been relatively restrained in responding to questions this week about Clinton’s health, on Wednesday began wondering aloud, tauntingly, about whether Clinton could hold hour-long rallies.
“I don’t know, folks. Do you think Hillary could stand up here for an hour?” Trump asked thousands of supporters on Wednesday in Canton, Ohio, where he held an event.
Clinton’s campaign on Wednesday released a two-page letter from her doctor that said she had been treated this week for “mild” bacterial pneumonia but is in overall good health and “fit to serve as president.”
