WASHINGTON — For all his talk about health care, President Obama still hasn’t quit smoking.
Obama, in his first checkup since taking office, yesterday got a clean bill of health — and a warning from his doctor about cigarettes.
White House physician Navy Capt. Jeffrey Kuhlman said Obama should stick with “smoking-cessation efforts,” the use of nicotine gum, and go back in August 2011, after he turns 50.
An avid basketball player, Obama is taking anti-inflammatories for tendinitis in his left knee. And his cholesterol is on the rise, creeping up to borderline-high levels at 209, compared to 173 total cholesterol when he was last tested before taking office in 2008.
Otherwise, the president is the picture of good health. Yesterday’s report said Obama, at 6-foot-1, weighs 180 pounds in shoes and exercise clothing.
The president was found free of colon cancer with a virtual colonoscopy.
The tendinitis that Obama suffers in his left leg could be the result of his basketball playing.
Kuhlman said that there was mild popping and grinding in the knee and “some weakness” in his left hip.
While at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., Obama visited with 12 military service members being treated for wounds suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan.