President Has Physical, Gets Wrong Diet Advice

Monday, March 1

Big news this week is that President Obama had his first physical exam since assuming office. The press pounced on the fact that the POTUS had slightly high cholesterol, 209, up from 173 on his previous physical. Mainstream media proffered headlines like "Barack Obama's Health Troubled by Cheeseburgers." White House doctors urged Obama to eat a low cholesterol diet.

That's not the solution. A major study (actually a meta-analysis of 21 previous studies) in this month's issue of the prestigious American Journal of Clinical Nutrition looked at thousands of patients and concluded that there was absolutely NO connection between dietary intake of saturated fat and heart disease, stroke, or cardiovascular disease in general. That's right, folks, fat--even the saturated kind--is not the problem.

What is? It's refined carbohydrates in the form of sodas, candy, flour products, even excess "fruit drinks."

But why the obsession with obsolete cholesterol guidelines in Obama's case? He has robust HDL cholesterol of 62, his blood pressure is great, he's lean, and he's an avid basketball player and jogger.

Of interest is that his doctors opted to perform an EBT heart scan, confirming that he had zero plaque in his coronary arteries. If you listen to Health Talk, or if you've been a patient of mine, you know that I'm a big fan of that test for determining whether patients have heart disease risk.

The irony is that Medicare and most insurance companies won't pay for this excellent test. If it's good enough for the Prez, why can't we get it?

Oh, and that virtual colonoscopy he got? That just got disallowed by Medicare, too. Government rationing, anyone?

Don't even get me started about Obama's continued flirtation with tobacco. My interpretation is that he thinks he's exempt from rules that apply to ordinary mortals. If he had real character, he would pledge to stop smoking and make it a national event, spotlighting the harmful effects it has on Americans' health and on spiraling health care costs.

Mr. President, use your bully pulpit for the sake especially of the millions of American youth who consider you a role model. Your purported efforts to curb health care costs with colossal new government programs would seem less disingenuous.