This Op-ed will help new visitors understand what is happening and how we got here with President Trump.
Or read the Overview.

Matters before 2021 are covered on the Trump.45 page.

President Trump's May 2026 medical report contains many irregularities, organized here into familiar information-corrupting buckets that impede efforts to understand his health:

• MORE Omissions ... of multiple test results
• MORE Ignorings ... of multiple clinical problems
• MORE Alterations ... of normal test ranges
• MORE Decoy ... with irrelevant material
• MORE Ambiguities ... of dates and phrasing
• MORE Misdiagnoses ... and incomplete diagnoses
• MORE Fawning ... including previous reports

However, it must be granted that the presidential physician during Trump's second term has twice accomplished something that had not been previously done since January 2018: release in-depth preventive medical assessments of the president. After the January 2018 physical, all subsequent preventive medical assessments of Trump — which excludes his covid bout — were one-page summaries that left many key parameters unspecified.

Comment: The mere existence of these more detailed assessments gives confidence that the system is operating and suggests the president is receiving attentive and principled medical care, despite what the paper trail might indicate. And so, in several places, I do not accept the possibility that Trump has incompetent doctors.
 
Although the irregularities in the reports raise many questions — especially the changed normal ranges MORE — an outsider finds many obstacles to understanding their origin and significance. Too much of the relevant information is available only to insiders. Genuinely innocent reasons could have propelled some of the irregularities into the report, so full judgment must await access to the inside information.

As a candidate, Trump issued three statements about his medical health:

• 2015: (December)   MORE Physician statement #1)
• 2016: (September)  MORE (Physician statement #2)
• 2016: (September)  MORE (Interviews: Dr. Oz, Fox)

Since taking office, Trump has had more-or-less yearly physical examinations at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center:

• 2017: (January)  Takes office.
• 2018: (January)  MORE Press briefing: MORE
• 2019: (February) MORE
• 2019: (November) MORE sham exam part 1
• 2020: (June)     MORE sham exam part 2
• 2021: (January)  Leaves office

For the second term:

• 2023: (November) MORE as candidate, by private practitioner
• 2025: (January)  Takes office.
• 2025: (April)    MORE long exam, with photos MORE
• 2025: (July)     MORE 1-page
• 2025: (October)  MORE 1-page
• 2025: (December) MORE 1-page
• 2026: (May)      MORE long exam

The main medical results from these evaluations are tabulated elsewhere MORE, and are discussed in various pages.

Comment: Lest anyone think that the level of detail and care applied to Mr. Trump's medical history is evidence of the mythical "Trump derangement syndrome," please note: This is what I do. I wrote an 816 page book on the medical history of Abraham Lincoln, for goodness sakes! :-) And I spent years working out the medical history of William Howard Taft.

So, study of Trump ranks a poor personal third, and even then cannot hope to compete with the exhaustive brilliance of Clarence Lasby's 384-page study of Dwight Eisenhower's heart attack 3. And if anyone claims to see partisanship here, please see my unsparing though sadly never-completed examination of Bernie Sanders from 2020.

It may also be helpful to understand that, even under the best circumstances, understanding the unique physiology of a single human is complicated. The complexity is magnified when information is scarce, but attention to detail can help compensate.

But I am embarrassed over the amount of detail here. My first excuse is that I wanted to collect all the relevant information so others can pick up the ball and reason with it, potentially in a new direction. My second is that I know how intense the public's interest in this topic is, so I want to make my part of it as clear as possible. Nobody else has stepped up to make sense of what's happening in any kind of responsible way (hey, America's heath reporters, was your summer vacation nice?), and I didn't want to do this, but if my suspicions are right, someone has to.

In fact, I do not claim that my suspicions are right. From a humanitarian aspect, I hope they are wrong. Amyloidosis is a miserable thing. I look forward to physicians telling me of the mistakes I've made and from others in how the situation could be communicated more clearly. But mostly I hope that the administration levels with the people.

Finally a style point. Referring to our subject as "Trump" grates to me a little, because he is better and more naturally called "the president." However, after he leaves office the term will not apply in the same way, so to avoid future editing, he is called "Trump," just as Taft is called "Taft," etc.

Photographs in July 2022 showed a well-healed linear scar at least one inch long (probably closer to two) on Trump's right forearm MORE.

Comment: The cause is unknown. It is too wide to look like a surgical scar. Was it traumatic?

A bullet scratched the pinna of Trump's right ear in July 2024, causing noticeable but minor bleeding and leaving a photographically imperceptible scar that holds a peculiar fascination for presidential physicians MORE.

Swelling ("edema") of Trump's ankles began in July 2024 or earlier, but his physician and the White House did not mention the problem until spurred by press photographs a year later. They have never acknowledged the facial swelling ("peri-orbital edema") that also appeared in mid-2024, and have consistently low-balled the amount of ankle swelling. MORE

The presidential physician's diagnosis of "chronic venous insufficiency," offered in July 2025 and never revised, does not explain the facial swelling or the rapid worsening of the ankle swelling from February to April 2025. Heart failure and nephrotic syndrome are better explanations for Trump's fluid accumulation. MORE

The substantial accumulation of fluid in the ankles and legs complicates the assessment of Trump's weight. Despite his 13-pound increase in total weight from 2025 to 2026, his dry weight appears to be relatively constant, meaning that he did not put on fat or muscle, but he gained fluid. MORE

In July 2025, the president's physician reported that he found no signs of heart failure in the president MORE. He was driven to make this statement because widely circulating photographs had recently showed marked swelling of Trump's ankles MORE and because swollen ankles ("edema") are a key sign of heart failure.

There are problems with his statement MORE:

1. Inadequate in multiple ways
   • Delayed
   • Date uncertain
   • Not reiterated in May 2026
   • Limited and misinterpreted evidence to support the claim
   • Missing evidence that could refute the claim
   • The proffered diagnosis is not tenable
2. Ignored strong evidence for heart failure
3. Limited, but direct evidence of heart failure symptoms

Comment: Despite the presidential physician's conclusion, heart failure is a better diagnosis MORE. And, because the evidence for heart failure is based primarily on detailed information from the president's physician, it is considered a likely diagnosis. Heart failure is a prominent feature of systemic amyloidosis.

Bruising appeared on Trump's left hand in July 2022 (or earlier) and the right hand soon after. Later, his face and both forearms can be seen to be bruised, making this a clear case of generalized bruising MORE.

Trump's medical reports acknowledge only the bruising on the hands. They offer the untenable diagnosis that a combination of taking aspirin plus trauma from handshaking is responsible for the bruising and is "benign." Comment: The proposed diagnosis is so inadequate that it can serve no purpose other than misleading the public away from some other disease. Numerous commentators have noted that handshaking does not disturb the left hand 1, and so the presidential physician's diagnosis is not even consistent with the findings in his own report. Alas, evasive medical reports have long plagued America.

Bruising (called "ecchymosis" medically) is a hallmark of systemic amyloidosis.

It would appear that something more than bruising may be affecting Trump's skin. Among the mysteries: On at least two occasions he has applied a band-aid to the back of his right hand and there is a puzzling photo that may show a nearby ulceration. MORE Comment: I don't have a good diagnostic hypothesis for these phenomena, but it is interesting that the same area seems to be preferentially involved in the examples found so far. Perhaps a neuropathy has left the back of his right hand relatively numb, and that predisposes him to trauma there.

Deliberately ignored by the president's medical reports and denied by the White House, but widely reported in the media, Trump has difficulty staying awake when he is not talking MORE. Videos show him drifting into short sleeps at the NBA playoffs, Pope Francis's funeral, Cabinet meetings, and multiple Oval Office occasions.

Although Trump has long had many reasons to sleep poorly at night, the major threat to sleeping that has emerged since his first term in office is heart failure MORE, suggesting that his daytime drowsiness is a manifestation of cardiac amyloidosis. If heart failure is making it difficult for him to sleep at night, that could also explain his late-night social media posting.

On Mar. 2, 2026 Trump appeared in public with an obvious and cringeworthy rash on the right side of his neck MORE.

The president's physician stated that "President Trump is using a very common cream on the right side of his neck, which is a preventative skin treatment, prescribed by the White House doctor. The President is using this treatment for one week, and the redness is expected to last for a few weeks" 4.

Informed online speculation mentioned 5-FU or imiquimod creams to treat actinic keratoses and described the rash as a "red scaling reaction" 5. He has a history of actinic keratosis MORE. Later photographs do not show the rash.

Unrecognized by the press, Trump has a poorly treatable chronic anemia, apparent since May 2026 MORE. (It is "poorly treatable" because it has not been successfully treated!)

Through Sep. 2026, the anemia has not been acknowledged in any way by the president's medical reports. In fact, it can be hypothesized that the president's reports were engineered to draw attention away from the anemia. MORE

The cause of the anemia is unknown. It is not simple aging. Anemia can occur as a complications of systemic amyloidosis. Iron deficiency (a cause of anemia) is common in both heart faiure and cardiac amyloidosis 6.

Photographs of Donald Trump show an oddity in the skin crease of his right wrist MORE. Is this a scar caused by carpal tunnel surgery? Is it just a lighting effect? I have no idea. Input from hand surgeons would be most welcome here.

The question is significant because finding carpal tunnel syndrome would greatly increase the odds that Trump has amyloidosis.

Trump is not correct in his recent statements that he has been taking "the big aspirin" 7 (325 mg per day 8 ) for 25 years for the reason that "I'm a little superstitious" 8. The smaller, usual dose for prevention is 81 mg per day. (On another occasion he claimed 30 years on the bigger dose 9).

His past White House medical reports show that he was taking 81 mg throughout his first term and back to 2015 MORE. Comment: How is it that respected media sources did not check Trump's 25-year claim?

Trump's second-term medical reports do not mention the aspirin dose, but in May 2026 his physician recommended "a low-dose aspirin" MORE. Trump previewed this advice in January, saying "They'd rather have me take the smaller one... I take the larger one, but I've done it for years, and what it does do is it causes bruising" 7.

Comment: The physician's recommendation to take a lower dose is notable because 325 mg per day can be recommended as part of preventing a second heart attack or a second stroke. Trump denies ever having a heart attack 10, but he does have various neurological asymmetries (in his face and gait) which raise suspicion of a past stroke. So, had his physician not recommended the lower dose, I would have suspected that Trump was properly taking 325mg for second-stroke prevention and, therefore, that he had sustained a stroke before his second term. Second possibility: he was placed on the higher aspirin dose for a limited time after an acute heart or brain event that occurred post-2020, and that he has decided to stay on it for longer than the recommended period.

But the mystery persists: Why did Trump raise his aspirin dose after his first term?

Comment: This is included only as a placeholder, for completeness. Clear asymmetries are intermittently visible in Trump's face (drooping in the right side of the mouth, flattened right nasolabial fold) and gait (features reminiscent of circumduction gait on the right). It will take significant future effort to ascertain whether these are real or illusory.

Comment: Various commentators have stated their strong beliefs that Trump is suffering from dementia or some other purely neuropsychiatric impairment. Those diagnoses, made from afar, are not tenable, for the simple reason that physical illness must be ruled out before latching onto one of these diagnoses.
 
As a simple example, high fever or low blood sugar or two sleepless nights will make anyone behave erratically, and so it would be folly to diagnose a primary brain disorder without considering physical causes like those. So, too, the effects ofpossible heart failure and amyloidosis must be considered before any neuropsychiatric diagnosis can be made from afar.