Jared Kushner, a prominent figure in American business and politics, has been the subject of public attention for various reasons, including his role as a senior advisor during Donald Trump's presidency and his marriage to Ivanka Trump. Beyond his professional and personal life, Kushner's physical appearance has also drawn scrutiny, particularly concerning his weight loss. This article delves into potential factors contributing to his weight loss, drawing from available information and providing a comprehensive overview.
Early Career and Transition to Politics
Jared Corey Kushner, born on January 10, 1981, is an American businessman and investor. He is the son-in-law of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, through his marriage to Ivanka Trump and served as a senior advisor in his father-in-law's first administration from 2017 to 2021. For much of his career, Kushner worked as a real-estate investor in New York City, especially through the family business Kushner Companies. He took over the company after his father, Charles Kushner, was convicted for 18 criminal charges, including illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion, and witness tampering in 2005, although Charles was pardoned by Trump in 2020. Jared met Ivanka Trump around 2005, and the couple married in 2009. He also became involved in the newspaper industry after purchasing The New York Observer in 2006. He was registered as a Democrat and donated to Democratic politicians for much of his life but registered as Independent in 2009 and eventually as Republican in 2018. He played a significant role in the Donald Trump 2016 presidential campaign, and was at one point seen as its de facto campaign manager. He became senior advisor to Trump in 2017, and held the position until Trump left office in 2021. His appointment was followed by concerns of nepotism. Here, he led the administration's effort to pass the First Step Act, a criminal justice reform bill signed into law in 2018. Kushner was the primary Trump administration participant for the Middle East Peace Process, authoring the Trump peace plan and facilitating the talks that led to the signing of the Abraham Accords and other normalization agreements between Israel and various Arab states in 2020. Kushner also played an influential role in the Trump administration's COVID-19 response, where he advised Trump that the media was exaggerating the threat of the disease. He was a leading broker in the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
The Stresses of Political Life and Physical Toll
After Trump won, Kushner and Ivanka Trump picked up from New York to move to Washington, D.C., where Kushner assumed a role as senior adviser. The novice senior adviser’s role appears to be taking a “physical toll” on him, the insider told the site. According to the report, Kushner has “become pale” and has “lost a noticeable amount of weight from his already slim frame in just a week.” Vanity Fair’s report also claimed that Ivanka, 36, “feels terrible” about posting a photo of herself and her husband at a gala amid the chaos of dad Donald’s immigration ban. Kushner has recently lost a noticeable amount of weight, as he has become consumed in the frantic day-to-day of the transition.
Thyroid Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment
In an forthcoming memoir entitled Breaking History: A White House Memoir, Jared Kushner, 41, writes that he was secretly treated for thyroid cancer in 2019. The former White House senior advisor and Trump son-in-law says: "On the morning that I traveled to Texas to attend the opening of a Louis Vuitton factory, White House physician Sean Conley pulled me into the medical cabin on Air Force One, 'Your test results came back from Walter Reed. It looks like you have cancer. The cancer was caught early; however, Kushner's physician, Thomas Fahey, MD, of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City, concluded that surgery was the most appropriate option. In the surgery performed just before Thanksgiving, a "substantial part" of his thyroid was removed.
Types of Thyroid Cancer
- Follicular thyroid cancer (FTC): Accounting for about 15% of all thyroid cancers, it begins in follicular cells and grows slowly. It originates in follicular cells and tends to grow slowly.
- Medullary thyroid cancer (MTC): This type makes up about 3-4% of all thyroid cancers. It begins in the parafollicular C cells of the thyroid and can, therefore, result in abnormally high levels of calcitonin. Its histology includes spindle-shaped cells with no follicle formation.
- Anaplastic thyroid cancer: Comprising only 2% of thyroid cancers, it also originates in the follicular cells of the thyroid. However, these cancer cells grow and spread quickly and are very difficult to control.
Well-differentiated tumors (papillary and follicular thyroid cancer) are highly treatable and usually curable, notes the National Library of Medicine's PDQ summary. Medullary thyroid cancer has an intermediate prognosis. It tends to grow slowly. About 25-30% of cases occur as part of a disease syndrome called multiple endocrine neoplasia, type 2 (MEN2) caused by mutations in the RET gene. It is estimated that there will be 43,800 new cases this year and 2,230 deaths from thyroid cancer, which is 0.4% of all cancer deaths. Approximately 1.2% of men and women will be diagnosed with thyroid cancer at some point during their lifetime. Thyroid cancer may not cause early signs or symptoms. It is sometimes found as a neck nodule noticed by a patient or during a routine physical exam. Thyroid cancer commonly presents as a so-called cold nodule. It is detected as a palpable thyroid gland during a physical exam and, when evaluated with iodine I-131 scans, scintigraphy shows that the isotope is not taken up in an area of the gland.
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Treatment for Thyroid Cancer
"Surgery is the therapy of choice for all primary lesions. Surgical options include total thyroidectomy or lobectomy. The choice of procedure is influenced mainly by the age of the patient and the size of the nodule. … The objective of surgery is to completely remove the primary tumor, while minimizing treatment-related morbidity, and to guide postoperative treatment with RAI [radioactive iodine]. Thyroid lobectomy alone may be sufficient to treat low risk lesions under 1 cm that are unifocal, intrathyroidal papillary carcinomas if there hasn't been any previous head and neck irradiation or radiologically or clinically involved cervical nodal metastases. Other than lobectomy patients, all will require thyroid hormone replacement therapy after surgery. Supratherapeutic doses of thyroid hormone are routinely administered to suppress thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) levels after thyroidectomy, which improves progression-free survival albeit not overall survival. For metastatic papillary and follicular thyroid cancer, PDQ notes: "Total thyroidectomy is still recommended as the initial treatment for metastatic papillary or follicular thyroid cancer. Standard treatment for patients with iodine-sensitive thyroid cancer consists of surgery, RAI therapy and thyroid suppression therapy. For those with iodine-resistant thyroid cancer, surgery and thyroid suppression therapy may be supplemented with external-beam radiation therapy (EBRT), targeted therapy, or both. For medullary thyroid cancer, treatment is total thyroidectomy unless there is evidence of distant metastasis. In patients with clinically palpable MTC, the incidence of microscopically positive nodes is more than 75%. Routine central and bilateral modified neck dissections are generally done. Standard treatment options for locally advanced and metastatic MTC include targeted therapy and palliative chemotherapy. Palliative chemotherapy has been reported to produce occasional responses in patients with metastatic disease, but no single drug regimen can be considered standard.
Other Possible Contributing Factors
Work Ethic and Dedication
Despite a rich kid’s upbringing across the Hudson River in New Jersey, and degrees from Harvard University and New York University law school, Kushner sees himself as standing apart from the institutional elite and eager to prove himself on his own terms. “I grew up, a kid in New Jersey,” Kushner told the New York Times in a 2011 profile. “And I’m here with these people who are very interesting people. And I’ve been able to develop a lot of very interesting relationships.” Jared is loyal to his father, whom he visited every Sunday while he served time in Alabama. But in Trump, he sees the opportunity of a lifetime to do something apart from the family business.
Dietary Changes and Exercise
It is possible that Kushner adopted new dietary habits or increased his physical activity.
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