President Donald Trump will undergo a physical in January, his first known medical exam by a government doctor since taking office.
Trump will be examined on Jan. 12 by Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson, the physician to the president, at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.
Jackson will issue a public statement on the president’s health after the exam, Sanders said.
During his campaign, Trump’s personal doctor, Harold Bornstein, released a letter claiming the real estate mogul would be the “healthiest individual ever elected.” The four-paragraph document, posted to the Trump campaign Facebook page, said his laboratory tests were “astonishingly excellent.” The letter revealed that Trump takes a daily aspirin and a low dose of a statin, a drug used to lower cholesterol, but did not detail his cholesterol levels or other medical data.
In a subsequent interview on the “Dr. Oz Show” Trump acknowledged enjoying fast food and said he wanted to drop weight. Aboard Trump’s campaign plane, “there were four major food groups: McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, pizza and Diet Coke,” his former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and another top aide, David Bossie, wrote in a recent book, according to The Washington Post.
Trump would sometimes order two McDonald’s Corp. Big Macs, two Fillet-O-Fish sandwiches and a chocolate milkshake for dinner, the two aides wrote. The president has complimented the book on Twitter.
His behavior while in office has sometimes raised concerns about his health. Stat News, a publication that covers health, medicine and science, reported in May that Trump’s speech has become less articulate in recent years and suggested that it could be related to cognitive decline.
The White House first announced Trump’s plans to have a physical earlier this month after the president slurred words during a speech announcing the U.S. would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Sanders said at the time Trump was simply thirsty and dismissed questions about his health as “ridiculous.”
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