EXCLUSIVE: Obama was so worried about Hillary's health he set up a secret medical check-up for her at Walter Reed - but she refused, fearing her LEAKING HEART VALVE and arrhythmia would be exposed

• e-mail

New York Times bestselling author Ed Klein is about to publish his fourth book about the Clintons since 2005, Guilty as Sin. On Sunday, DailyMail.com described one chapter in which Klein tells how Bill Clinton enjoyed foot rubs, massages and romps in his presidential library with female interns. Below, Klein reveals exclusive new information about Hillary Clinton’s health – information that he has learned since the book went to press - as well as an exclusive excerpt from Guilty as Sin describing shocking new details about the Democratic presidential candidate’s medical crises. Guilty as Sin is available in bookstores October 4 and for order from Amazon.

 EXCLUSIVE NEW INFORMATION REGARDING CLINTON'S HEALTH:

President Obama is so concerned about Hillary Clinton's health that he recently offered to arrange a secret medical checkup for her at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

Hillary declined the offer because she feared the media would find out about her Walter Reed visit and learn the truth about her medical condition—that she is suffering from arrhythmia (an abnormal heart beat), a leaking heart valve, chronic low blood pressure, insufficient blood flow, a tendency to form life-threatening blood clots, and troubling side effects from her medications.

Ed Klein - one of Hillary Clinton's fiercest critics - revealed new details about the presidential candidate’s health exclusively with DailyMail.com

Klein shared details about Clinton's heath on the day before his fourth critical book against her, Guilty as Sin, hits bookstores

Klein claims that President Barack Obama was so concerned about Clinton's health that he offered to set up secret medical checkups for her, but she declined his offer in hopes of keeping her health issues out of the public sight

Hillary has arranged her own secret medical visits to the New York-Presbyterian Hospital, where she arrives through a private entrance out of public sight and where she can rely on her doctors' discretion not to speak to the media.

Her doctors have prescribed Coumadin (a blood thinner) and a beta blocker to treat her arrhythmia and heart-valve problem. However, these medications have the side effects of making her drowsy and tired, and lowering her blood pressure, leading to frequent bouts of light-headedness and fainting spells.

Concerns over over Clinton's health have taken the forefront in the upcoming presidential election

Clinton collapsed at a memorial ceremony at the World Trade Center on September 11, and later revealed that she was suffering from pneumonia 

Over the past several years, best-selling author Klein has led the way reporting on Hillary's health problems. In his latest book Guilty as Sin, which will be published Tuesday, he devotes an entire chapter to Hillary's health and raises the question of whether she is fit to become president and commander in chief. 

EXCERPT FROM KLEIN'S GUILTY AS SIN

Chapter 25: Fit to Lead? 

The greatest fear among senior members of Hillary's staff was that if the 'Comey primary' (shorthand for the FBI email investigation) didn't get her, her health would.

But no one in her campaign dared discuss the question of whether Hillary was medically fit to be commander in chief. Speaking about her health was the ultimate taboo.

Conveniently (at least for Hillary), the liberal mainstream media cooperated and chose to ignore the topic—even when a photo of Hillary, taken in February 2016, surfaced during the campaign showing her being assisted by two men as she stumbled up a short flight of stairs. 

On the other hand, when Donald Trump, his surrogates, or conservative commentators like Sean Hannity raised the subject of Hillary's health, they were vilified and accused of trafficking in unsubstantiated rumors. Journalists were treated even worse; those who dared explore Hillary's health issues were accused of being dishonest, dishonorable, and discredited.

Clinton has suffered multiple coughing fits throughout her campaign, including one in New York City in February (pictured above)

As a result, the public was left in the dark about Hillary's fitness to lead.

For years, Hillary had kept her medical history secret out of fear that, if it became public, it would knock her out of contention for the White House. But in December 2012, she suffered a medical emergency that couldn't be hidden from the public. Just before she was scheduled to testify on Benghazi in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, she fainted in her seventh-floor office at the State Department.

It wasn't the first time that had happened. She had a fainting spell in 2005 during an appearance before a women's group in Buffalo, and another fainting spell in 2009 while boarding her plane in Yemen, where she fell and fractured an elbow.

In this latest incident at Foggy Bottom, she hit her head and suffered a concussion. She was treated at the State Department's infirmary and sent home to Whitehaven to recover.

When Bill appeared on the scene, however, he demanded that she be flown immediately to the New York-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan. There, doctors discovered that Hillary had a right transverse venous thrombosis, or blood clot, between her brain and skull. She had developed the clot in one of the veins that drains blood from the brain to the heart.

On further examination, it turned out that Hillary had an intrinsic tendency to form clots and faint. Several years earlier, she had developed a clot in her leg and was put on anticoagulant therapy by her doctor. However, she had stopped taking her anticoagulant medication, which might have explained the most recent thrombotic event.

Clinton's health has been questioned after websites circulated an old picture of Hillary Clinton slipping while walking up a flight of stairs (pictured)

According to a source close to Hillary, a thorough examination revealed that Hillary's tendency to form clots was just one of her medical problems. She also suffered from a thyroid condition, which was common among women of her age, and had an undiagnosed heart problem, which probably contributed to the cause of her fainting spells. A cardiac stress test indicated that her heart rhythm and heart valves were not normal.

At the time, I tried to contact the Clintons' cardiologist, Dr. Allan Schwartz. He refused to take my call. However, I learned through other channels that Hillary's doctors considered performing valve-replacement surgery. They ultimately decided against it for reasons that were never made clear, although some sources speculated that Hillary did not want to risk the negative political fallout from stories about such a serious operation.

After her concussion, Hillary had trouble with her vision and had to wear corrective Fresnel prism lenses, which gave rise to questions about the long-term seriousness of her condition. Her chief flack, Philippe Reines ('Lyin' Phil' in Donald Trump argot), tried to make light of it; he claimed that she had recovered in a snap. But Bill Clinton revealed the true nature of her condition when he said that it had taken Hillary 'six months of very serious work' to recuperate from her concussion.

A year after her doctors discovered the blood clot on Hillary's brain, she was still on a blood thinner. And there were reports that she might be suffering from post-concussion syndrome, a disorder that can have a severe effect on a person's cognitive abilities.

----------- 

The presidency is the most stressful job in the world, and the physical condition of those who aspire to the office is of vital importance. In my book, Unlikeable: The Problem with Hillary, I devoted five pages to an exploration of Hillary's health. As far as I could tell, I was the first journalist to explore this critically important subject in depth.

In July 2015—three months after she announced her intention to seek the presidency—Hillary's longtime personal physician, Dr. Lisa Bardack, released a two-page letter that was aimed at giving Hillary a clean bill of health.

Clinton leaves New York Presbyterian Hospital with husband Bill and daughter Chelsea on January 2, 2013, just weeks after suffering a concussion

'She does not smoke and drinks alcohol occasionally,' Dr. Bardack wrote. 'She does not use illicit drugs or tobacco products. She eats a diet rich in lean protein, vegetables and fruits. She exercises regularly, including yoga, swimming, walking and weight training.'

According to Dr. Bardack, Hillary had recovered completely from the concussion and the blood clot in her brain.

But there were several problems with Dr. Bardack's letter. According to interviews that I conducted with several of Hillary's close friends, she drank wine or beer every day, had no interest in yoga, did not use a personal trainer to do weight training, and got most of her exercise by strolling around Chappaqua or walking in Rock Creek Park near her home in Washington.

In fact, Hillary still suffered from many of the troubling symptoms that I wrote about in Unlikeable: blinding headaches, exhaustion, insomnia, and a tremor in her hands.

Klein's new book, Guiilty as Sin, hits bookstores on October 4 and is available on Amazon

As a precaution against the spectacle of her fainting again—this time in public, which could easily doom her candidacy—Bill insisted that Hillary travel with a personal physician. At first, she resisted his advice. But he enlisted the support of the Secret Service and his friend Dr. Dean Ornish, who had put Bill on a low-sugar, plantheavy, low-fat diet. Together with Dr. Ornish, Bill found a suitable physician to travel with Hillary and keep her under constant medical observation.

Since then, there have been several troubling incidents, all of which have been kept from the news media. For example, after her eleven-hour testimony before the Trey Gowdy Benghazi committee, Hillary swooned as she walked to her waiting car. She had to be carried by her aides and conveyed into the back seat.

Tension headaches continued to plague her and often made it hard for her to maintain her grueling campaign schedule, or to concentrate on a subject. In one of the emails released by the State Department, Huma confessed that Hillary was easily 'confused.' Huma frequently ordered campaign aides to alter Hillary's schedule at the last moment so the candidate could catch her breath and take time out for naps.

That might have explained why Hillary was often as much as two hours late for campaign appearances—and why she was late in returning from a 'bathroom break' during a televised Democrat debate in December.

'She no longer has the stamina for eighteen-hour campaign days that she was once capable of doing,' said a source close to Hillary.

It went without saying that the presidency was a twenty-four-hour-a-day job. 

Clinton fractured her elbow in 2009, but still managed to negotiate with Hondouran leaders, and, according to her spokesman, text with one hand

In April 2016, Hillary had a coughing fit while being interviewed on The Breakfast Club, one of New York's top-rated radio shows among African Americans.

'Allergy season,' she gasped. 'My voice is failing here.' Within minutes, my email inbox was filled with questions: Did Hillary's frequent bouts of coughing prove she was hiding a serious health problem? And what about her renewed use of those thick eyeglasses to correct double vision?

Bill's worst fear, according to my sources, was that Hillary would faint at a critical moment in the campaign and reveal the truth about her physical condition. If people knew the full extent of her medical problems, they might question her fitness for the job of commander in chief. Everything had to be done to hide the truth.

To get to the bottom of this matter, I turned to one of Hillary's oldest friends who has known her for almost fifty years. This woman frequently speaks with Hillary on the phone, and visits her at her homes in Chappaqua and Washington, D.C. Hillary trusts her and confides in her.*

'Bill told me that he is very worried about Hillary's health,' this woman said. 'She is not steady on her feet, frequently gets dizzy, and often needs help to climb stairs and even to stand for long periods. Bill is concerned and wants her to have tests run. But she refuses, saying she doesn't need it and fears any tests she had done might be leaked to the press or get posted on the Internet.

'I've noticed that she has her legs elevated most of the time when she is out of public view,' she continued. 'Huma often brings her a cool water-soaked towel, which she applies to her forehead and her neck. She has terrible headaches that make her sag like she is going to fall over.

'Huma always kneels down, whispers to her, rubs her shoulders, and comforts her. Huma often seems genuinely alarmed at her condition, and looks agonized as well.

'Hillary also has a masseuse on call to work on her legs, which give her almost constant pain. It reminds me of what I read about Jack Kennedy's constant back problems and how they were always hidden from the public.'

* Some readers might wonder why a F.O.H.—Friend of Hillary—would talk to an author who is known for his critical books about Hillary. There are several explanations. First, this friend of Hillary's has been a source for several of my books, and I have always protected her anonymity. Second, in describing Hillary's health, this woman exhibited a deep concern for her old friend. Third, like all sources who speak anonymously about their powerful friends, she is aware of her own importance as a witness to events. And fourth and perhaps most important, friends of powerful people often harbor a natural human ambivalence about someone who is 'above them,' and by talking to an author they feel they are evening things out.

'Unfortunately for Hillary, a lot of the things that are written about her health on social media sites are purely speculative. But she and Bill and all the members of their inner circles are growing more and more alarmed that her health problems are going to be a huge issue in the campaign. Trump clearly revels in bringing it up and realizes he gets a great deal of press from it.

'Hillary has said that she should get sympathy from a lot of voters over the fact that she is suffering aches and pains like most everyone else her age. She looks to me to be in absolute agony a lot of the time, particularly when she has been on her campaign trail for long periods of time.

'Her campaign people are well aware of her problems and are doing everything possible to make her schedule as easy as possible, but it's hard to run for president and not work hard and spend a lot of time on your feet and constantly get photographed.

'She believes that for the most part the press has been very considerate, withholding the worst pictures of her, particularly the ones of her looking like she is in agony, or worse, simply confused. I'm convinced that if it was up to Bill he would shut down the campaign and end it. But Hillary would rather die than do that. I think it is fair to say that the biggest issue behind the scenes with the campaign is Hillary's health.