President Trump is in ‘excellent health*’, and mentally fit for office reported Dr. Ronny Jackson, presidential physician, on Tuesday. Trump aced the Montreal Cognitive Assessment test, a brief, basic test used to detect mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease. (Critics point out that Jackson is not a psychiatrist nor a psychologist, and mention other tests that could have been done).
*Trump is in fact borderline obese and has elevated cholesterol. He maintains a poor diet, has a stressful job, and gets very little exercise. Dr. Jackson did admit that Trump has to work on his diet.
Here is Forbes magazine, weighing in: We are invited accordingly to ask: ‘excellent’, compared to what? Even that tends to vary, but the customary answer would be: the prevailing norms of a given population or culture. The typical American, with a typical American diet and lifestyle, is at massively elevated risk for debilitating chronic disease relative to, say, the typical Blue Zone resident, or the atypical Americans who manage to take good care of themselves here in spite of it all. America overall is famous for spending more on disease care than peer nations around the world, while having far less health to show for it by the measures that matter most: years in life, life in years, and the bounty of both. Americans lag behind much of the developed world in longevity, and lag even further behind in vitality.
