A dark-colored bruise on President Trump’s left hand was the result of hitting a table and of taking aspirin, he told reporters on Air Force One on Thursday.
“We saw the bruising on your hand. Are you OK?” a reporter asked the president, according to an audio recording from his flight back to the United States from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
“I’m very good,” Mr. Trump, who is 79, answered. “I clipped it on the table. So, I put a little — what do they call it? — cream on it. But I clipped it.”
Pictures of the bruise spread on social media and elsewhere on Friday morning, in keeping with previous intense interest in the president’s health.
Mr. Trump said that the bruise was also a side effect of taking aspirin.
“I would say take aspirin if you like your heart. But don’t take aspirin if you don’t want to have a little bruising. I take the big aspirin. And when you take the big aspirin, they tell you you’ll bruise,” he said.
Last Summer, Mr. Trump was diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency, a condition that is common among older adults that occurs when veins have trouble moving blood back to the heart. Around that time, Mr. Trump was also seen with bruising on his hands, which his physician attributed to the president’s frequent handshaking as well as to the use of aspirin.
Mr. Trump has taken a high daily dose of aspirin for over two decades, rejecting medical guidelines and advice from his doctors to switch to a lower amount.
“The doctor said, ‘You don’t have to take that, sir. You’re very healthy.’ I said, ‘I’m not taking any chances,’” he told reporters on Thursday.
During an interview with The New York Times in the Oval Office this month, Mr. Trump said that he wanted “nice, thin blood going through my heart.” During that interview, he said that he has not been diagnosed with heart disease and has never had a heart attack.
A decade ago, the best evidence available suggested that the routine use of aspirin could reduce heart attacks and strokes in people without a history of heart disease by helping to prevent the formation of blood clots. The results of three trials published in 2018 upended that thinking, suggesting that aspirin might not provide as much benefit in people without a history of heart disease and showing that it increased the risk of dying from bleeding and cancer.
Claire Moses is a Times reporter in London, focused on coverage of breaking and trending news.
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