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Joe Biden (in November 2023)

Photo: Susan Walsh / dpa

There is hardly an issue that the US Republicans would rather drag onto the agenda than Joe Biden's health and general suitability for office.

Conservative politicians and the media are working on the alleged decline of the US President.

However, with regular misfires and slips of the tongue, this also gives them plenty of cause for excited discussion.

The US President is struggling with all sorts of aches and pains, but according to his doctors he is fully fit for his job.

The White House published the 81-year-old's latest health check on Wednesday (local time).

It lists various minor ailments on six pages, including, as in previous years, unflattering things such as general “wear and tear” and a “stiff gait”.

However, Biden's doctor certifies that the oldest US president of all time is "healthy", "active" and fully capable of fulfilling the duties of his office.

However, there are certainly doubts about this because of Biden's advanced age, regular small misfires and a recently published investigative report on another matter.

It is a peculiarity of US politics that presidents must regularly disclose their health status.

This is not legally required, but it has become a kind of ritual that no incumbent can avoid.

Once a year, US presidents undergo extensive tests and routine examinations, the results of which are then published in some detail.

Biden visited the Walter Reed military hospital near the capital Washington on Wednesday.

The six-page report issued afterward by his doctor, Kevin O'Connor, said the Democrat was feeling well and there were no new health concerns.

However, various known ailments of the president are listed.

The 81-year-old is struggling with general wear and tear on the spine.

"The President's gait is still stiff, but has not worsened since last year," the doctor wrote.

Recently, Biden also had to complain about increased discomfort in his left hip when he was active.

No signs of strokes or Parkinson's

For several months now, the most powerful man in the world has been wearing a breathing mask “almost every night” because of sleep apnea.

This has proven effective, the doctor wrote.

Sleep apnea is a sleep-related breathing disorder in which those affected experience pauses in breathing during sleep.

This means that those affected do not wake up feeling refreshed in the morning.

Biden also suffers from reflux disease.

According to the doctor, the digestive disease means that Biden has to clear his throat and cough more often.

What else the doctor noted, as in previous reports: The president does not smoke, does not drink alcohol and exercises “at least five days a week.”

He is 1.83 meters tall and weighs just under 81 kilograms.

The results of the report are largely similar to the results of previous studies.

Biden's age is nevertheless omnipresent when reading the bulletin - for example in comments that there are no signs of possible strokes or Parkinson's and that the president has "no tremors."

The president's health is generally generating increased public interest in the USA.

This applies even more to Biden given his old age.

He moved into the White House in 2021 as the oldest president ever and wants to run for a second term in November.

If he manages to do that, he would be 86 years old at the end.

In parts of the population and Biden's own party, enthusiasm for his re-election campaign is therefore limited.

Questions about the president's cognitive ability

Biden regularly makes headlines with blunders, slips of the tongue and minor missteps.

Competitors from the Republican ranks - above all Biden's predecessor and likely challenger in the November election, Donald Trump - are making extensive use of such gaffes to question Biden's mental and physical fitness.

Most recently, the publication of an investigative report into the affair surrounding Biden's storage of secret documents caused a great stir because the Democrat was portrayed in the report as a doddering old man - a "well-meaning older man with a bad memory" whose ability to remember was "significant." “restricted”.

Biden angrily rejected the account and claimed that his memory was perfectly fine.

On Wednesday, the White House was once again confronted with questions as to why the President had not also taken a test on his mental fitness during his routine health check in order to demonstrate his cognitive abilities.

“The president doesn’t need a cognitive test,” said Biden’s spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre.

That is the unanimous assessment of his doctors.

“He completes a cognitive test every day when he moves from one topic to the next,” emphasized the spokeswoman.

jok/dpa