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Seventy-four-year-old Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders has released a letter from his attending physician that describes him as “overall in very good health”.
Earlier, Sanders’ campaign distributed a one-page letter from the senator’s doctor, who declared the candidate to be in “overall very good health”.
With reporting from inside the campaign, personal relationships with Sanders’s friends and colleagues, and meticulous research, reporter Harry Jaffe offers a portrait of the ultimate outsider candidate, charting Sanders’s course from Brooklyn to Burlington, and now to Des Moines and beyond.
Sanders is neck-and-neck with Clinton in Iowa.
Presidential candidates often release such statements to assure voters that they are fit for the presidency.
The letter is dated January 20, days after reports that the founder of a pro-Hillary Clinton PAC, David Brock, had planned to publicly call for Sanders’ records ahead of the Iowa caucuses. His main Democratic opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who’s 68, would be the second-oldest.
Sanders is 72 inches tall and weighs 179 pounds, as of his last physical in November.
In the letter, his doctor noted that Sanders over the years has been treated for diverticulitis, or inflammation of the digestive tract, as well as ailments like laryngitis related to esophageal reflux.
Sanders has maintained on the campaign trail that he is in excellent health and promised to release information about his health prior to the February 1, Iowa caucus. He has also had surgery to fix hernias and excise a vocal cord cyst, the letter said.
Sanders does not smoke and uses alcohol “infrequently”, the doctor wrote.
Sanders takes medication to treat hypothyroidism, which is when the thyroid doesn’t produce enough hormones. She has been diagnosed with hypothyroidism and seasonal pollen allergies and takes a daily anticoagulant to protect against blood clots, reported NPR.
Donald Trump “will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency”, if he wins, Trump’s doctor stated.
Clinton released her records last July.