Famous People With Diseases

Fame often divides among some of the people. Famous people normally enjoy many privileges that others do not, but the privilege of avoiding heart disease is not one of them. A famous person with severe heart disease faces the same risk factors as those who are not famous. A famous person with heart disease experiences the same cardiac symptoms, and can die of heart disease. The famous can actually not escape heart disease, known by physicians as coronary artery disease (CAD).

A famous person with heart disease who very recently underwent triple heart bypass surgery is Regis Philbin well-known United States TV anchor. He had severely experienced typical heart disease symptoms such as chest pains and shortness of breath, despite having angioplasty 14 years ago. He thus joined a long list of famous people with similar heart disease. Here are a few among dozen of them, Bill Clinton - quadruple bypass surgery in 2004; David Letterman - quadruple bypass surgery in 2000; Larry King - heart attack and bypass surgery in 1987; Mike Ditka - heart attack in 1988; Tommy Lasorda - heart attack in 1996; Dick Cheney - at least 4 heart attacks; Phyllis Diller - heart attack in 1999; Elizabeth Taylor - congestive heart failure; Victoria Gotti - heart disease from age 16; Ma Ji - died of heart disease in 2006; Alfredo Di Stefano - heart attack in 2005; Sir Ranulph Fiennes - heart attack and bypass surgery.

The famous French painter Renoir whose art-works adorn many museums also battled severe rheumatoid arthritis that bothered him during the last three decades of his life. He badly suffered his first heart attack in 1898 and his joints became severely deformed later. Hollywood star Kathleen Turner was so severely bothered by the pain of rheumatoid arthritis that she had suicidal thoughts and the performer of the first human heart transplant in 1967 Dr. Christiaan Barnard was forced into retirement in the year of 1983 by the disease that had plagued him since youth.

Lucille Ball the Comedy queen “I Love Lucy" fame had rheumatoid arthritis when she was 17 but that did not stop her from pursuing her dreams. Her first severe attack came while she was working as a model for Hattie Carnegie's famous dress shop. She felt excruciating pain in her legs and the doctor who saw her said she would probably end up in a wheelchair as a result of the disease. Later on, Lucy was referred to an orthopedic clinic near Columbia University where she was given experimental “horse serum" shots for several weeks that drained her money but did not stop the pain. Frightened and disheartened, she returned to her parent's home in Jamestown, New York.

One of the most famous people with a lethal disease, the skin cancer was President Ronald Reagan, who was diagnosed with the disease while he was still in office. He had a tumor removed from his nose in the year of 1987 and that again returned six months later. Unfortunately in the year of 2001, Ronald Regan's daughter Maureen died of skin cancer at age 60.

• Emma Bullock
• 06/02/2009, 8:59 AM
• 0 Comments