President John F. Kennedy's Medical Records Suggest He Had Undiagnosed Celiac Disease: Jackie Kennedy Described It As The "Kennedy Stomach"

Jon Bari
16 hours ago
5 min read

Updated: 30 minutes ago

Here's looking at you kid: Jax Bari at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum

"I've got something wrong with my intestines. In other words I shit blood." -- John F. Kennedy (letter to LeMoyne Billings)

Overview: MAHA Report, Celiac Disease & President John F. Kennedy

When President Donald J. Trump and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. released the Make Our Children Healthy Again Assessment on May 22, 2025, the MAHA Report declared that "the health of American children is in crisis" and cited that:

Today, over 1 in 4 American children suffers from allergies, including seasonal allergies, eczema, and food allergies.
Between 1997 and 2018, childhood food‑allergy prevalence rose 88%.
Celiac disease rates have increased 5-fold in American children since the 1980s.

In order to Make America Healthy Again for 3.3 million Americans with Celiac Disease, including 729,000 children, it's instructive to look back on the health of President John F. Kennedy who was the uncle of Secretary Kennedy. Looking back, there are some historians, physicians and Celiac Disease experts who believe that President Kennedy may have suffered from undiagnosed Celiac Disease.

Celiac Disease is a potentially life-threatening food allergy and auto-immune disease that is triggered by eating Gluten, a protein found in Wheat, Barley, Rye and most Oats. In addition to vomiting and diarrhea, individuals with Celiac can experience many adverse health effects from eating Gluten including anemia, immunological scarring, intestinal damage, malnutrition and cancer.

President Kennedy's Health History Suggests Undiagnosed Celiac Disease

According to American historian Robert Dallek, one of John F. Kennedy's biographers, "Kennedy's charismatic appeal rested heavily on the image of youthful energy and good health he projected. This image was a myth. The real story, disconcerting though it would have been to contemplate at the time, is actually more heroic. It is a story of iron-willed fortitude in mastering the difficulties of chronic illness."

Dallek chronicled that JFK had a "sickly childhood" during which "he spent significant periods during his prep school and college years in the hospital for severe intestinal ailments, infections, and what doctors thought for a time was leukemia."

In 1934, JFK was 17 years old, 6'1" and weighed 141 pounds when he was diagnosed with "cramping abdominal pain with alternating diarrhea and constipation" as well as food allergies to various foods including whole milk and various grains. [1]

In June 1934, JFK spent a month at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and during his stay, JFK wrote to his childhood friend LeMoyne Billings, "I am suffering terribly out here, I now have a gut ache all the time. I'm still eating peas and corn for my food... God what a beating I'm taking. I've lost 8 lbs. And still going down... I'm showing them a thing or two. Nobody able to figure what's wrong with me. All they do is talk about what an interesting case."

"Newly uncovered medical records reveal that the scope and intensity of his physical suffering were beyond what we had previously imagined." Robert Dallek, Kennedy Biographer, 2002

Kennedy's Medical Diagnoses

Below are some of John F. Kennedy's Medical Diagnoses:

Recurrent gastrointestinal problems (abdominal pain, diarrhea, gastritis, duodenitis/duodenal ulcers, colitis)
Weight Loss/Failure to Gain Weight
Food Allergies
Addison's Disease
Hypothyroidism
Osteoporosis
Degenerative lumbar spine following discectomy
Chronic Pain Syndrome

Below is a timeline of the diagnosis of JFK's gastrointestinal symptoms, adrenal insufficiency, and hypothyroidism plotted against JFK's body weight at various ages.

Food allergies to various foods including whole milk and various grains, July 1934

† Addison's disease diagnosed, September 1947.

‡ Unsuccessful back surgery, October 1954.

§ Suspected initiation of testosterone therapy, July to August 1960."

Source: Annals of Internal Medicine

As reported by Allergic Living in 2011, the audio tapes of Jackie Kennedy speaking with a White House aide "renew the belief that former U.S. president John F. Kennedy had celiac disease.' The tapes include references to "JFK's stomach troubles," which apparently ran in the family and were referred to as the 'Kennedy Stomach.'"

In 2002, Dr. Peter Green, Director of the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University and a leading gastroenterologist, published an article for the History News Network suggesting that JFK's medical history was consistent with undiagnosed Celiac Disease: "Was JFK the Victim of an Undiagnosed Disease Common to the Irish?" Dr. Green opined:

"New revelations that have appeared in the New York Times and the Atlantic Monthly, about John F. Kennedy's health have raised questions about his physical condition during his presidency. Robert Dallek, in the December Atlantic Monthly, described in "The Medical Ordeals of JFK" long standing medical problems that started in childhood. In Kennedy's adolescence, gastrointestinal symptoms, weight and growth problems as well as fatigue were described. Later in life, he suffered from abdominal pain, diarrhea, weight loss, osteoporosis, migraine and Addison's disease. Chronic back problems, due to osteoporosis resulted in several operations and required medications for chronic pain. He was extensively evaluated in major medical centers including the Mayo Clinic and hospitals in Boston, New Haven and New York. Among the multiple diagnoses were ulcers, colitis, spastic colitis, irritable bowel syndrome, and food allergies. His medications included corticosteroids, antispasmotics, Metamucil and Lomotil. However it is not clear that his physicians obtained a definitive diagnosis...

Osteoporosis is common in patients with Celiac Disease, men often are more severely affected than women. Gastrointestinal symptoms in celiac disease persist for many years prior to diagnosis and are often attributed to an irritable bowel syndrome or spastic colitis. Patients typically see many physicians prior to the diagnosis of celiac disease...

Kennedy's Irish heritage, long duration of gastrointestinal complaints (since childhood), diagnosis of irritable bowel syndrome and migraine, presence of severe osteoporosis, and the development of Addison's disease all lead to a presumptive diagnosis of Celiac Disease."

President John F. Kennedy's physician Dr. Janet Travell (at the microphone) briefs the press on the President's illness. White House Press Secretary Pierre Salinger stands next to Dr. Travell; White House media network electrician, Cleve Ryan, sits in front of door. Fish Room, White House, Washington, D.C., June 22, 1961. Credit: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum

Common Sense Solution is Actionable Now

Following the MAHA Report Assessment, the Make Our Children Healthy Again Strategy (MAHA Report Strategy) will be released by August 12, 2025. The upcoming MAHA Report Strategy "shall address appropriately restructuring the Federal Government's response to the chronic childhood disease crisis, including by ending Federal practices that exacerbate the health crisis or unsuccessfully attempt to address it, and by adding powerful new solutions that will end childhood chronic disease." We respectfully call on HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to grant Jax's FDA Citizen Petition which presents a common sense solution with declaring Gluten as a Major Food Allergen and requiring the labeling of Gluten to better protect more than 729,000 American children with Gluten grain food allergies (FDA-2023-P-3942).

[1] Dr. Paul A O'Leary to Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., July 6, 1934 (JFK health, series 1.2.4., box 21, JPKP), as cited by the British Medical Journal.