Trump declares perfect health after Walter Reed physical; Eli Lilly spends $4B on three vaccine developers; obesity leveling off in wealthy nations, still rising elsewhere – Morning Medical Update

President Trump, turning 80 next month, gets physical at Walter Reed and declares perfect health

The White House has not yet released details from the exam.

President Donald Trump visited Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Tuesday for what the White House called a routine semiannual physical, his third visit to the facility in 13 months, and declared afterward that "everything checked out PERFECTLY." Trump, who turns 80 in June, is the oldest person to assume the presidency. No detailed medical report had been released as of Tuesday afternoon.

The president’s health has drawn recurring scrutiny, including visible bruising on his hands, which his physician attributed to frequent handshaking and aspirin use. Swelling in his legs, diagnosed last summer as chronic venous insufficiency, and occasional apparent drowsiness during public appearances, have also been subject to public speculation. Medical disclosures from the White House have grown progressively less detailed over the course of his second term: the April 2025 physical produced a three-page report including bloodwork and medications, while the October 2025 visit yielded a vague memo that took until December to be released. In January, Trump told The Wall Street Journal he takes 325 milligrams of aspirin daily, which is more than his doctors recommend, and said he regretted the October imaging because of the health speculation it generated. The New York Times has more.

Eli Lilly to spend up to $4 billion acquiring three vaccine developers

The deals, targeting shingles, staph infections and Epstein-Barr virus, mark a return to infectious disease for a company that had largely stepped back from the space.

Eli Lilly announced Tuesday it will acquire three small vaccine developers in deals collectively worth up to $4 billion, signaling a renewed focus on infectious disease as the company continues a broad buying spree fueled by profits from its blockbuster weight-loss drugs. The three companies are Curevo, a Seattle-area firm developing a shingles vaccine; LimmaTech Biologics, a Swiss company targeting staph infections; and Vaccine Company, which is focused on the Epstein-Barr virus. None have products on the market.

The vaccine industry broadly has struggled under HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose policy changes have weighed on vaccine sales and made fundraising harder for smaller developers. Lilly, which became health care's first trillion-dollar company last fall, has a long history in infectious disease — it produced the polio vaccine in the 1950s — but had largely deprioritized the space in recent years in favor of diabetes, obesity, cancer and Alzheimer's treatments. This year alone the company has also acquired companies working in cancer, narcolepsy, cell therapies and inflammation. The Wall Street Journal has more.

Global obesity rates level off in wealthy nations, continue to rise elsewhere

A 44-year analysis of 232 million people found obesity growth has slowed or stabilized in most high-income countries, even as it accelerates across most of Africa, Asia and Latin America.

The rise in obesity has slowed, stabilized or even begun to reverse in most high-income countries, while continuing to accelerate in much of the developing world, according to a 44-year analysis of global obesity data published in Nature. The study, led by Imperial College London and involving more than 1,900 researchers across 200 countries, analyzed body mass index (BMI) data from more than 232 million people aged five and older from 1980 to 2024. Improvements were typically seen first among children, often a decade before similar trends appeared in adults, with most high-income Western countries seeing childhood obesity rates stabilize by the mid-2000s.

In some nations, including France, Italy and Portugal, rates may have begun to decline. The U.S. was among countries where stabilization occurred at much higher levels, with childhood obesity plateauing between 19% and 23%. Researchers cautioned that framing obesity as a single "global epidemic" obscures enormous variation between countries and said the divergence between wealthy and developing nations likely reflects differences in access to healthy food and physical activity opportunities. The authors also noted that GLP-1 drugs are unlikely to explain the trends observed so far, though they may play a larger role in future data.