Alzheimer’s, Neurosyphilis, Drug Addiction Are All Probable
Dr. William Andereck has practised internal medicine for 45 years. This week he wrote an opinion piece for the San Francisco Chronicle about Trump’s steep mental decline, including one that may not be showing up in blood tests. “Concerns about Donald Trump’s mental fitness,” he wrote, “have heightened since his latest refusal to release his medical records to the public. Reports from some of his closest associates over the past eight years have noted a marked decline in his ability to remain on topic and his fanciful rambling. Facts have become confused, threats have been made and a sense of grandiosity, mixed with paranoia, prevails. His behavior may be all a calculated, contrived act to win the presidential election. If not, then there is some serious pathology going on here.”
Obviously, he can’t “definitively assess Trump’s cognitive functioning without examining him in person, physicians regularly explore the potential causes of a patient’s illness as part of a time-honored tradition during what we call ‘Grand Rounds.’ In this format, a patient case is presented, and a senior clinician discusses the probable causes of the patient’s ailment, known as a ‘differential diagnosis.’ The senior clinician has never seen the patient and admits to only receiving information secondhand. Therefore, a best guess is all that can be offered in a differential diagnosis of multiple diseases… In Trump’s case, the differential of cognitive decline is extensive.
Alzheimer’s disease, for example, could be at play but also a host of other medical conditions could be causing his symptoms, including poor blood flow to the brain due to hardening of the arteries, vitamin B12 deficiency, low thyroid function, mercury and other heavy metal ingestion, diffuse tumors such as lymphoma, and infection, to name a few.
Most of these disorders are detected readily with simple blood tests and a physical exam. But there is one disease, if not thought about, might slip by, with devastating consequences: syphilis.
Neurosyphilis is an infection of the brain by an infectious agent called a spirochete.
Brain damage due to syphilis is a rare but fatal disease if not treated. It begins with a small sore on the genitals that is not painful and goes away on its own. However, the spirochete, if not diagnosed and treated appropriately, can continue to spread throughout the body. A secondary phase, associated with a rash, lymph node swelling, and fatigue can occur a few weeks to months later, but that too can resolve on its own. The disease, however, is relentless and can remain dormant for 25 years before reemerging as cognitive impairment. Patients with neurosyphilis have often been confused with having other types of dementia. For this reason, it has gained the moniker the Great Imitator.
When syphilis affects the brain, it is a progressive dementing illness. In addition to memory loss, the symptoms include impaired judgment, uninhibited speech and actions, delusions, confusion, paranoia and grandiose thoughts. The most common blood test for the disease can be negative after so many years, and the only way to confirm the diagnosis is to perform a spinal tap to evaluate the fluid around the brain.
Not exactly a routine procedure for an annual physical exam.
The spirochete has a predilection to attack the frontal lobe of the brain— the area of the brain responsible for our judgment and inhibition. It helps us filter our thoughts and not just pop off with anything that comes to mind, no matter how inappropriate. Recent events, such as Trump’s vulgar behavior at the Al Smith dinner, his bizarre 39-minute break to listen to a playlist rather than address the audience, and especially his reference to Arnold Palmer’s genitalia, are a clear sign the frontal lobe is not doing its job.
Trump’s insistence that he won the 2020 presidential election seems delusional. Believing that heads of state will bow to his personality and charm is a sign of grandiosity and threats to prosecute his adversaries demonstrates paranoia. Meandering speeches about sharks and cannibals, disorientation to what state he is in and disassembled facts that blur the difference between truth and fiction are further, but nonspecific, signs of mental decay.
Again, without a personal exam, I am unable to make a specific diagnosis of Trump’s cognitive decline. I must rely on his public remarks and behaviors to guide my analysis. What is clear though, is something is not right.
We do not know what blood tests the former president has taken, but even if his doctors rule out most possible causes for his mental decline, The Great Imposter needs to be ruled out as well.
Unlike most causes of dementia, syphilis is treatable. Since the 1950s, penicillin has been recognized as halting the progression of the disease in some cases.
While Andereck carefully outlined probable medical conditions afflicting Trump, there's a less speculative angle that bears mentioning. Reliable sources have indicated that Trump has been using very strong doses of Adderall for any years. This undoubtably contributes significantly to his impulsive behavior, erratic speech, and apparent cognitive deterioration. Stimulants like Adderall, especially in unregulated doses and particularly for someone as old as Trump, impair judgment, fuel paranoia and worsen cognitive decline. In any differential diagnosis, medications and other substances are essential to consider— especially substances that impact the frontal lobe, where impulse control and judgment are managed. Trump's displays of grandiosity, fixation on past achievements, and bouts of disorientation are in line with stimulant-related effects. Taken together with other potential underlying conditions, it paints a deeply concerning picture of mental decay.
Adderall, being a strong stimulant, affects the brain’s neurotransmitters, specifically dopamine and norepinephrine, which can cause both short- and long-term side effects. Paranoia and elusions, similar to psychosis, with irrational fears and potentially delusional thoughts, which can lead to extreme distrust and erratic behavior. Long-term use leads to impulsive and risky, impared decision-making and a decrease in the ability to think rationally. Users experience compulsive behavior, memory loss and heightened irritability as well as aggressive outbursts and emotional instability, with users experiencing quick shifts from euphoric to depressive states.
You no doubt have recognized in Señor T an obsessive focus on certain topics that leads to long-winded, repetitive and fixated speech, reduced inhibitions and decreased social filtering that has led to highly inappropriate comments and actions. The idea of 75 million idiots voting for him simply says there are 75 million Americans who hate our country and hate their own lives.
Or it could be a " calculated, contrived act to" stay out of prison which a mobster whose name has slipped my mind used to stay out of the big house.