Harvard Medical School’s Dr. Jeremy Faust explains President Donald Trump’s diagnosis of chronic venous insufficiency, and why it’s normal for someone of the president’s age.

Washington

Dr. Jeremy Faust of Harvard Medical School clarified that President Donald Trump’s diagnosis of chronic venous insufficiency is not alarming and is typical for someone of his age and weight category. The condition, which involves slowed blood return to the heart and can cause swelling or varicose veins, is described as a normal part of aging, particularly in older adults who are overweight or obese.

Dr. Faust emphasized that while chronic venous insufficiency can be associated with more serious conditions such as deep vein thrombosis, Trump was evaluated for these risks and no dangerous blood clots were found. The doctor noted that the spectrum of related illnesses can range from mild to life-threatening, but in this case, the president’s condition was found to be benign.

Harvard doctor explains Trump diagnosis as ‘benign condition’

So what happened here was good medical care so far, and it's basically not alarming information, and it's not surprising. The president is an older man. I believe he just turned 79 years old. He has had risk factors for this condition that they're talking about, which is called chronic venous insufficiency. And what that really means is that the blood that goes out of the heart has to return to the heart through the veins. And as we age, some of that blood flow back to the heart, that's called venous return, just slows down in some patients more than others. And that can lead to things like swelling. That can look like things that many people would be familiar with, like varicose veins. So this is a pretty normal part of aging, and especially for someone in the overweight to obese category, which is where the president has always been. But the bigger concern, which was addressed in that information that we just heard about, is that symptoms like this do need to be evaluated for more serious conditions. And that is what happened. And as stated, a deep vein thrombosis is what the concern would be. That is an abnormal blood clot. Our blood is always on this balance between how thick and thin it should be. And we have an amazing, we have amazing bodies that keep our blood in a really narrow range of how thin or thick it should be for our own safety. Too thin, you bleed too much. Too thick, you make clots, which blocks off blood supply to vital organs. And so when you have, if your blood is a little too thick or a little too slow, in terms of getting back to the heart, which is this condition that the president does have, these blood clots can start to accumulate in places where they're not supposed to or get too large to be safe. And the concern there would be when that blood clot occurs, that it can actually then break off of the vessel where it's forming, usually in the legs, and travel up back to the heart. And then when it gets pumped back out, it can cut off blood supply chiefly to the lungs, but it can also go other places depending on individuals' anatomy and abnormalities. But these dangerous blood clots, they can be very dangerous. Some people can get these conditions diagnosed. They're called pulmonary embolisms in the lungs, blood clots of the lungs. And they can be benign and they can be treated, but some of them can be life-threatening. So it's an amazing spectrum of illness that we diagnose in ERs where people have these blood clots and the treatment can really vary from blood thinners by mouth or IV. But in serious life-threatening cases, some of these blood clots need to be removed actually in medical procedures, or we need to give medications that break those clots apart. So it's a spectrum of disease that can go from mild to life-threatening. And that is why the president was evaluated, to see if he had that condition of a blood clot. And fortunately, he did not.

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