Healthcare

Fake medical news

Published

2 years ago

January 19, 2018

CNN won four – count ’em – four Fake News Awards. It’s unfortunate that Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s commentary on the President’s so-called heart disease wasn’t available when the awards were being selected. Then they would have won five. And on the way, they created a new category of Fake News: Fake Medical News.

Let’s get one thing clear here. This isn’t the distance diagnosis of Trump’s “mental illness” that Dr. Bandy Lee, a formerly licensed psychiatrist made. That sort of diagnosis requires that evidence be manufactured. No, this is the process of taking existing evidence and twisting it into something that it isn’t. Of course, that’s standard fare for the Left, so we really shouldn’t be surprised.

Trump Health

The first is the trend of the President’s Agatston Coronary Calcium Score. This is the data. And it’s factually correct. So far, no problem. But right below the data is a false statement.
This graphic, which CNN put up twice during their interview segment with Dr. Gupta has several clear statements. We can’t go Democrat and twist them, so we have to take them at face value. After all, that’s exactly what CNN wants us to do.

“A score of 100+ = High Risk of Heart Attack or Heart Disease Within 3-5 Years”

During the interview, Dr. Gupta admitted that this score is about average for 71 year old men in the US. If the caption was true, then the average 71 year old man in the US is at “high risk” for a heart attack in the next three to five years, and that’s, to quote Rush Limbaugh, “Barbra Streisand!” Yes, they have the “get out of jail free” line “or Heart Disease,” but it doesn’t change the way CNN used the data. They wanted us to believe that the President is on death’s door due to heart disease.

Yes, Dr Gupta flatly declared “The President HAS heart disease.” Had he actually spent time reviewing how cardiac tests are properly used, he wouldn’t have been able to say that. So after consultation with the former Chief of Cardiology at a major metropolitan medical center, we can now properly understand this data.

President Trump is 71 years old. You expect calcium in his coronary arteries at this age. But we don’t know where that calcium is, and that makes a difference. If it’s all in one spot that means something very different from a little here and a little there. Further, CNN flatly lied in their graphic. The proper outlook should have been “moderate risk,” not “high risk.” And with just the Agatston score, you can’t determine the presence or absence of heart disease. It’s only a screening test, and even if your score is over 2,000 – Trump’s is only 133 – there’s still a 13% chance that you don’t have any coronary disease.

Dr. Gupta could have discovered this information with a simple internet search. It’s all out there. So Gupta’s statement that “Trump has cardiac disease” is coming from either an idiot or a liar… You pick.

At age 71, there’s no reason to even look at a calcium score. All the calcium score tells you is that you need a functional test. What’s that? A stress test! And you may want to add an echocardiogram. But at age 71, those would be routine, so there’s no point in looking at a calcium score. At age 65 I had both, just like the President, and we didn’t bother with an Agatston score. And just like the President, mine are NORMAL. What does this mean?

A normal stress test in a 71 year old male means that the President has a very low risk of any sort of cardiac event for at least the next two years. But Gupta got all excited about risk factor modification. Let’s get real. If his lifestyle has worked for Donald Trump for 71 years and he’s at low risk, what does he really need to change? There’s very little chance that he will ever develop coronary disease.

What things are they recommending? Diet and exercise. Give me a break. Yes, the President could lose a few pounds. That would improve his golf game and make him look better when he’s standing next to Melania. But the calorie restriction high carb diet they’ll prescribe will make things worse, not better. There’s a better way, and Dr. Jason Fung and Nina Teicholz have proved it.[i] Exercise is good for some things, but it won’t help his weight. And the only thing wrong with Donald Trump’s cheeseburgers is the bun. He should get rid of it.

One other part of the problem is that they are pushing statins on him. Statins can lower cholesterol, but it turns out that doing that can easily affect your thinking, since cholesterol is a YUUGE part of the cell membranes in the brain. We also should recall that all those studies that appear to say that lowering cholesterol is good for you seem to ignore all the bad things that the drugs do. In short, if the President just gave up carbs, he’d lose weight and wouldn’t have any need for statins.

So what’s really going on here? We have a neurosurgeon who works for a network that wants to destroy the President giving a message that matches the Left’s party line. He couldn’t be bothered to do his homework and discover that the President’s doctor is right. Trump’s heart is in great shape. And while we’re at it, let’s look at that other thing – the echocardiogram.

Echocardiography lets us get a view of how the heart muscle and valves work. Trump’s echo was – drum roll please – normal. That means that his heart valves are fine. But there’s something more important here. If you have blocked arteries in your heart, areas of heart muscle won’t get enough blood flow and won’t contract properly. They’re called “segmental wall motion abnormalities,” and you’ll see them on the echo. If you don’t have those, you don’t have blocked arteries. That’s called “normal.”

But we’re not done. The Left is grasping at straws. A number of docs are arguing in print that high cholesterol will kill him. As I said before, it’s time to re-read all those old studies. And for the rest of us, read “The Big Fat Surprise.” The actual data simply does not support those claims. A researcher named Ancel Keys simply lied about a host of studies and managed to get his views established as the gospel truth. Only now we are starting to learn why Eskimos and the Masai were able to live for millennia on very high fat diets with zero heart disease, zero cancer, zero high blood pressure, zero obesity, or any of our other modern health problems.

But Dr. Gupta is not the only liar on the Left. Trump takes finasteride to prevent hair loss. Numerous commentators are dropping hints that its documented side effects of sexual dysfunction and depression may be in play. They have no data, but are happy to drop hints about a possible “sudden onset of mental illness.”[ii]

Let’s wrap this up. Donald Trump is in excellent health. Frankly, the only diet change he should make is to dump the buns from his cheeseburgers. And he should dump the statins with them. As Dr. Malcolm Kendrick notes, “Statins might alter what is written on your death certificate, but they are extremely unlikely to change the date.”[iii] We might even suggest that he drop the Finasteride and switch to Rogaine.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta should go back to neurosurgery, a field where he is respected. But don’t count on that happening. CNN likes his way of presenting lies about Trump’s health. So all we can really do is to laugh at them on inauguration day in 2024 when President Trump watches Mike Pence take the Oath of Office.