An adviser to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has an explanation for President Donald Trump’s supposed “dementia” and swollen cankles.
Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a British cardiologist who advised the lobby group Make America Healthy Again (MAHA), before stepping back last week when he was appointed chief medical and scientific adviser to the new European health activism organization Make Europe Healthy Again (MEHA), is understood to have passed on his concerns via his contacts in the Trump administration.
In a speech to the European Parliament on Wednesday, at a MEHA launch event, Malhotra, whose unconventional anti-COVID-19 vaccine views attracted Kennedy’s attention in late 2022, will say that he believes Trump’s health issues stem from his use of cholesterol-lowering medication called statins, and aspirin.
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. 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 health of Trump, 79, has been the subject of much speculation over the past few months, leading the White House to reveal that he has been diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency (CVI). The non-life-threatening condition results in veins struggling to return blood to the heart. It is common in people over 70.
Trump has also suffered a number of spells of apparent confusion or forgetfulness. He has mixed up names and places, and failed to spot people he knows, even when they are standing very close to him or seated opposite. He has also told impossible stories with absolute conviction.
Malhotra’s campaign against the overuse of statins has 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.
His views have been denounced by large swaths of the medical profession, including the British Heart Foundation, which stated that they were “misleading and wrong.”
They also conflict with mainstream guidance, which says, in older adults, decisions about statins and aspirin hinge on individualized cardiovascular and bleeding risks. Patients are advised not to stop prescribed medications without consulting their clinicians.
However, Malhotra will tell the European Parliament—in an event live-streamed on the MEHA website from 9 a.m. EST on Wednesday—of his belief that statin use is the reason for Trump’s “brain fog,” and that if the president stopped taking them, this would “cease… within just a few weeks.”
“In my view President Trump is a remarkable man, almost superhuman to do one of the hardest jobs in the world at his age, but if I was his personal physician I’d want to optimize him even further, and 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,” he will say.
“In someone like President Trump, with evidence from tests of no significant vascular disease, he is much more likely to suffer a serious life threatening bleed from aspirin than it prevents him from having a heart attack or stroke.
“Secondly, research independent of the drug industry published in the British Medical Journal—which I was a co-author—revealed that in those over 60 the higher one’s… cholesterol, the longer one was likely to live.
“Thirdly, statin side effects become more common the older one gets so he may be getting unnecessary fatigue or occasional brain fog and memory disturbance. So, by using statins, it’s probably doing Trump more harm than good [because] of their side effects. Why take that risk?
“In my view this illustrates no one is immune to medical misinformation, not even the U.S. President. Ultimately crony capitalism devours its own children.”
Malhotra feels so concerned about Trump being on what he believes are unnecessary medications that could be giving him adverse side effects that he’s understood to have sent messages about it to several people close to the president.
In January, Trump became the oldest president to take office at 78. But an annual health report released in April claimed that he was in “excellent” health.
The report did, however, note that Trump, now 79, had high cholesterol, which was “well controlled” with the statin rosuvastatin, and ezetimibe, which is not a statin but is used to absorb cholesterol, and low-dose aspirin.
Trump is now among nearly 30 percent of the American adult population over the age of 40 who are on statins. According to The Guardian, Trump’s cholesterol levels have dropped significantly since he started taking them in 2018.
While there is no evidence that statins cause dementia itself, the FDA added a safety label to statins in 2012 that includes adverse effects such as “notable, but ill-defined memory loss or impairment that was reversible upon discontinuation of statin therapy.”
“I would not be surprised that if President Trump stopped his cholesterol-lowering drugs, the side effects will cease within just a few weeks… making him feel even younger than he already does,” Malhotra will say.
The FDA says statin-related “cognitive impairment” is “generally not serious” and is “reversible upon statin discontinuation,” within three weeks.
Government officials claim that bruising on the back of Trump’s hand—which is often covered up with make-up, and which he appears to try to hide from cameras—is unrelated to the vein issue, attributing the marks to frequent handshakes, and his use of aspirin, which can cause bruising.
Known side effects of rosuvastatin can include swelling in hands, ankles and feet. Possible side effects of ezetimibe include yellowing of the skin.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who is regularly pressed about Trump’s health, said: “He’s moving, he’s working, he’s continuing—there have been no adjustments made to his lifestyle.” She declined to commit when asked whether Trump’s physician, Capt. Sean Barbabella, would take questions about the president’s health.
Malhotra previously told the Daily Beast that he also plans to talk to Trump about his opposition to the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine. Kennedy is known to be a major skeptic. The cardiologist told the Daily Beast that members of Trump’s family are also skeptical.
Malhotra, who has repeatedly defied the scientific consensus by claiming that the vaccines are more dangerous than the virus, expects the jabs to be withdrawn from the U.S. market “within months.”
After Trump released a health report last week, which revealed he had had a COVID-19 booster, Malhotra will also tell the European Parliament: “The benefit of the president taking a booster in protecting him from being seriously ill from COVID is close to zero.
“The medium to long-term risks may include heart attack, and there’s even some recent data suggesting the possibility of cancer.”
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 approached the White House for comment. Spokesman Kush Desai said: “President Trump is a champion-level golfer with the mental acuity and energy levels that most young people could not fathom having.
“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.”
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