A fringe British cardiologist who advises U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claims to know why Preisdent Donald Trump has allegedly been suffering from "dementia" and swollen ankles, according to a report in The Daily Beast.
Dr. Aseem Malhotra was an advisor to Kennedy's Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement before stepping down last week to become chief medical and scientific adviser to the new European health activism organization Make Europe Healthy Again (MEHA).
In a speech to the European Parliament last week, Malhotra, a known anti-vaxxer, claimed that Trump's apparent health issues are caused by the cholesterol lowering statins and aspirin he takes, The Daily Beast says.
"Malhotra has waged a long and controversial campaign against the lack of transparency in the widespread prescription of statins and the dangers of their overuse," The Daily Beast says.
"Medical consensus largely disregards his claims, but that has not discouraged Trump’s health secretary from seeking his counsel, and the pair have become friends," the note.
Trump, the oldest sitting president in U.S. history, has been the focus of much speculation over his health and cognitive decline, as well as bruising he has covered up with makeup, brushed off by the White House as the effects of handshaking, and a recent diagnosis of chronic venous insufficiency that causes swollen ankles.
Despite that, his acolytes and staff insist that he is the picture of perfect health, as they did Friday when the president stopped by Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for what was the second "annual" check-up in six months, at which he received both the flu and COVID booster shots, much to MAHA's dismay.
Malhotra’s campaign against the overuse of statins has, says The Daily Beast, highlighted their significant side effects, which the FDA says can include “cognitive impairment,” such as “memory loss, forgetfulness, amnesia, memory impairment, confusion”—and a paper hosted by the NIH says can cause muscle inflammation, or swelling."
Most medical experts call Malhotra egregiously wrong, including the British Heart Foundation, which calls his studies, "misleading and wrong."
Malhotra says if Trump stopped taking statins and aspirin, his "brain fog" would “cease… within just a few weeks.”
"The first step would be to stop his aspirin and the cholesterol lowering medications he’s taking that are likely shortening his lifespan and giving him fatigue,” the doctor claims.
Malhotra also alleges that according to a study he co-authored, the higher the cholesterol in a person over 60, the longer they will live.
"By using statins, it’s probably doing Trump more harm than good [because] of their side effects. Why take that risk?" the doctor asks.
Malhotra is no stranger to controversial diagnoses debunked by medicine and science. "Last month, Malhotra made headlines by suggesting that King Charles III may have developed cancer through the jab despite no evidence to support the claim,' The Daily Beast says.
Even the White House agreed that this was a fringe take.
“So-called medical ‘experts’, especially foreign ones with no relevance or involvement with the Administration, should stop beclowning themselves and marring their credibility by pitching their idiotic hot takes with Fake News outlets that have nothing better to cover," spokesman Kush Desai told The Daily Beast.