Recap of President Donald Trump's Health
In his second term, Donald Trump is
bruised, bloated,
drowsy, anemic,
hypotensive, scarred,
blank-faced, hunched, and wobbly.
That's a lot of ills, especially if viewed as multiple isolated single problems...
which they are not.
Several of Trump's health concerns are features of a serious disease called
systemic amyloidosis.
For that reason, and because amyloidosis threatens the ability to govern,
the President should be tested for it, and the results publicly disclosed.
Read the Op-ed on amyloidosis
for an introduction to that topic.
This page presents conclusions about individual Donald Trump health issues,
including links to supporting evidence and reasoning.
Not coincidentally, the conclusions show how each individual issue fits into
the amyloidosis suspicion.
In 2026 the major concern is for Donald Trump's physical health, not his
putative mental health issues,
which voters declared immaterial to governing
when they elected him to a second term in 2024.
Aside: If you are the argumentative type, welcome. I look forward to your reasoned
disagreements. But please read the linked pages before growling.
The page concludes with observations on
Trump's fitness to govern, on
his doctors, and on
what-aboutism.
Other resources include:
- A master page on Trump's health in his second term and one on his first term
- The reasoning behind the amyloidosis suspicion
- Doubts about amyloidosis
Trump's Anemia ↑
Both the media and the administration have failed to note the significant
and continuing drop in President Trump's blood counts since 2018.
Oversights like this get doctors sued for malpractice.
The anemia is mild, but it is a major health issue for President Trump because
it incontrovertibly proves that,
despite official insistences that Trump is healthy, he is, in fact, ill.
The anemia's cause is unknown. But, because it has persisted, and because I assume
his doctors are competent, it can be classified as a poorly treatable chronic anemia.
This favors a bone marrow problem or an "anemia of chronic disease."
Amyloidosis can cause anemia by many mechanisms.
Learn more about Donald Trump's anemia.
Trump's Swollen Ankles ↑
The media photographed marked swelling of Trump's ankles beginning in July 2025, prompting
a quick explanatory diagnosis from the White House: "chronic venous insufficiency."
Chronic venous insufficiency is a disease of the leg veins, especially common in
older persons.
The
official medical report
cited evidence for chronic venous insufficiency
and against other possible causes, specifically heart failure and
"kidney impairment."
While Trump may indeed have some degree of chronic venous insufficiency,
so many irregularities attend this diagnosis that it cannot be accepted as the
sole cause of Trump's swollen ankles, which appeared as
early as July 2024.
Because it cannot arise from bad leg veins, the puffiness (swelling) of Trump's
face, which appeared in the latter half of 2024,
is strong evidence of an additional cause, most likely heart failure or
nephrotic syndrome.
Nephrotic syndrome is a kidney disorder that spills protein into the urine. In
some vocabularies it does not fall within the technical term "kidney impairment"
1.
Amyloidosis is notorious for causing a type of heart failure that produces
leg swelling out of proportion to the other symptoms of heart failure.
Some types of amyloidosis cause nephrotic syndrome.
Learn more about Donald Trump's swollen ankles
Trump's Weight ↑
During his first term, Trump's weight flirted with the threshold for obesity,
generating much discussion.
The media's continuing interest, in the second term, is ignorant, because Trump's legs
are retaining so much fluid (est. 15-20 lb) that conventional criteria for obesity no longer apply.
Stepping on the scale measures total weight, which is the sum of dry weight and fluid weight.
Dry weight includes fat, muscle, and bone. Ankle swelling is fluid weight.
The amount of fat weight becomes very difficult to measure when fluid weight is
significant.
Nevertheless, Trump's weight is now more important than ever. Gaining fluid weight could
indicate worsening heart failure. Losing dry weight could be due to heart failure
("cardiac cachexia") — an ominous development in any patient with amyloidosis.
Going forward, it will be difficult to understand Trump's weight
because separately measuring the fluid weight and dry weight is not routine.
Learn more about Donald Trump's weight
Trump's Blood Pressure and Heart Failure ↑
In 2026 Donald Trump's systolic blood pressure (the top number) fell to 105 from its
years-long stable baseline of about 125. He is taking no medications that could do this,
nor is weight loss an explanation.
Coupled with Trump's markedly swollen legs, his newly low blood pressure is
major evidence of heart failure in a man of his age and habits. Other facts add
to the suspicion. First, he underwent two unusual cardiovascular tests in the
last half of 2025 — why?
Then, unlike Trump's July 2025 medical report, his
May 2026 medical report
did not
disclaim heart failure: it remained ambiguous at best, silent at worst — why?
Heart function is a major determinant of Trump's health. Heart failure alone can render
a president unable to govern due to the fatigue it causes. The heart failure that arises
from amyloidosis is especially difficult to treat because the heart's relaxation,
not contraction, is impaired.
Learn more about Donald Trump's blood pressure and possible heart failure
Trump's Sleepiness ↑
Donald Trump's sleep health was
a topic of discussion
even in his first term.
Since then, something has obviously changed, because he is now falling asleep in public
functions when he is not talking. That did not happen before.
Drowsiness is an altered state of awareness in which memory and information processing
are impaired. That affects governance. If, while boarding your airliner one day,
you saw the pilot asleep in the cockpit as
the co-pilot talked at him, you would be (appropriately) nervous.
Now imagine the pilot is 80 years old.
Fatigue is a prominent complaint of amyloidosis patients. Sleepiness, directly,
can arise from the sleep breathing problems caused by the heart failure intrinsic to amyloidosis.
But unlike more common sleep breathing problems, a CPAP mask is not effective
as treatment. Treating the heart failure helps, but the persistence of Trump's
ankle swelling suggests his heart failure treatment is at its limits.
Learn more about Donald Trump's sleepiness
Trump's Hand Bruising ↑
Marked hand bruising appeared on Trump hands by July 2022. Later photographs
showed bruising on his face. Photographs in summer 2026 showed more bruising,
on both forearms. This is generalized bruising.
Explanations from President Trump and his people (including physicians) reference the
effects of aspirin, handshaking, and isolated minor traumas. Certainly aspirin now
contributes to his generalized bruising tendency, but Trump, by his own admission,
had been taking aspirin for decades before bruising appeared. So, again, something
has changed to make Trump more bruisable, and it is not aspirin, which has been a constant.
The change could be age, or the aspirin dose. But easy bruising is also a hallmark of
amyloidosis, as abnormally behaving proteins infiltrate
the walls of small blood vessels, making them stiff and fragile, prone to rupture
with imperceptible trauma.
Learn more about Donald Trump's bruising
Unsolved ↑
Mysteries remain in President Trump's health history:
- What caused the neck rash of March 2026?
- Is that a scar from carpal tunnel surgery on his right wrist?
- What caused the large scar on his right forearm?
- Are the asymmetries in his face and gait real or illusory?
The most important of these is the wrist scar, because carpal tunnel syndrome is a prominent early sign of amyloidosis.
Is Donald Trump Medically Fit to Govern? ↑
Legally, President Donald Trump is fit to govern until a 25th Amendment procedure says he is not.
In recent decades, presidential physicians invariably concluded their
annual medical reports with the
firm but worthless statement that the president, whoever it may be, is fit to govern.
The phrase is hogwash. First, the physician has no legal role in determining the
president's fitness. Second, no standard for presidential fitness exists,
except what's in the physician's mind. That, of course, is never revealed and is
subject to non-medical influence.
It is further hogwash when, as in the case of Donald Trump in 2026,
the medical report ignores an obviously concerning condition like
chronic intrusive daytime sleepiness
that would make an Uber driver unsafe.
Presidential panels recognized long ago that no laws specifically
govern the presidential physician's role
2.
The consequent risks
should be clear. Mitigating them is nonpartisan. In a future post I will
describe simple, common-sense reforms that would
do much to improve the situation without compromising the president's
reasonable right to privacy.
Trump's Doctors ↑
President Trump's second-term physicians include military physicians stationed
at the White House and Walter Reed, plus whoever in America might be called in
consultation, primarily university specialists.
Their Public Statements
If you're wondering why only one person is (for now) making the claim that
Donald Trump has amyloidosis, it's because all public statements about the president's
health are, pre-eminently, political documents, designed to disguise politically
damaging truths — inevitably and in all eras.
Penetrating these disguises is a difficult, adversarial process.
Specifically, although I do not believe presidential physicians of the modern era
tell falsehoods,
I do believe they stop just short of it and actively erect obfuscations.
Given the many past cover-ups —
Garfield,
Cleveland,
Wilson,
FDR,
Kennedy,
Reagan, and
Biden —
it would be folly to pretend otherwise.
Recent medical reports about President Trump contain a remarkable number of
irregularities, of many types found in historical presidential health reports.
The clearest example, if my analysis is correct, is a
misdirection about his anemia.
Learn more about irregularities in Trump's medical reports
Their Competence
The physicians practicing in the White House are not specialists.
The specialists at Walter Reed, while excellent, are generally not at the
leading edge of medicine.
Physicians of all skill levels must know when they are in over their head,
so they can ask for help from someone more knowledgeable. My faith in the
competence of President Trump's physicians is really a faith in their
ability to make this call, because once the need
for consultation is realized, consultation from an expert is assured.
The identity of physician consultants is not released to the public.
Learn more about President Trump's doctors
Donald Trump Health What-Aboutism ↑
Readers who visit other pages on this website may conclude that the coverage of
Donald Trump exceeds the coverage of other presidents. This is an
illusion. The coverage of both Abraham Lincoln and William Taft is far
more extensive — including an 816-page book and an 11-page medical journal article,
respectively. Even the coverage of Mary Lincoln is longer (book-sized)!
President Donald Trump gets greater detail than recent presidents because his medical pathology
is greater and because I was running down a specific novel hypothesis.
It took a deep dive to be sure there were no egregious
errors in proposing the amyloidosis hypothesis.
About the Author Dr. John Sotos is a cardiologist with special training in heart failure and heart transplantation. He has been writing about presidential health since 2000 at doctorzebra.com, now moved to sickpresidents.com. All his writing is known for its exhaustive scholarly documentation. His first book, an academic text on bedside diagnosis, Zebra Cards: An Aid to Obscure Diagnosis, became iconic in medical circles. His two books about presidential health, The Physical Lincoln and The Physical Lincoln Complete have received worldwide attention. He has additionally published several peer-reviewed journal articles on presidential health and been frequently consulted by the media, including on-air appearances on CNN and the CBS Evening News. More about the author.
Cited Sources
- Levey AS, et al. Nomenclature for kidney function and disease: Executive summary and glossary from a Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) Consensus Conference. Kidney Research and Clinical Practice. 2020; 39(2): 151-161. On the web at: https://doi.org/10.23876/j.krcp.20.393
Comment: Twenty-four renal journals published this article. - Toole, James F.; Joynt, Robert J. (eds). Presidential Disability: Papers, Discussion, and Recommendations on the Twenty-Fifth Amendment and Issues of Inability and Disability among Presidents of the United States. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2001. 562 pages.