Republican VP candidate's health declared as 'excellent'

Republican vice presidential candidate Mike Pence's campaign on Saturday released a letter from his doctor that declared his health as excellent.

While Pence's father died of a heart attack, the letter noted that Pence, unlike his father who smoked cigarettes, neither smokes nor drinks alcohol and appears to have a "very good and strong heart", Xinhua news agency reported

"You are medically able to maintain your high level of professional work and your physical activity programs without limitations," said the letter written by Michael Busk of the St. Vincent Health, Wellness and Preventative care Institute in Indianapolis.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's campaign also released a new brief note from the real estate magnate's doctor earlier this week, claiming that the candidate was "in excellent physical health".

According to the five-paragraph note written by Trump's doctor Harold Bornstein, Trump, 70, is six feet two inches tall and weighs 107 kg.

"Trump was hospitalised only once, as a child of 11 years old for an appendectomy," said the note, adding that there is no family history of premature cardiac or neoplastic disease.

Trump has annual physical exam in the spring of every year, and his last colonoscopy, chest X-ray and cardiac evaluation were results. Trump also takes a low dose aspirin and a statin, rosuvastatin, used for lowering cholesterol.

It was the second time since last December that the Trump campaign had released public documentation about Trump's health.

In his last note about Trump's health in December 2015, Bornstein declared "unequivocally" that Trump would be the "healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency."

It was later disclosed that Bornstein spent five minutes writing the note.

The physical fitness of presidential candidates was put in the limelight early this month after Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was videotaped being helped into a van while her feet appeared to be dragging on the ground during a 9/11 memorial in New York.

The Clinton campaign later acknowledged that the 68-year-old former US secretary of state had been diagnosed with non-contagious, bacterial pneumonia.

--IANS

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