HEALTHWATCH: BURT REYNOLDS

Burt Reynolds rarely appears in public these days.

But the frail 79-year-old turned up at Wizard World Comic Con in Chicago on Saturday to promote his new biography, But Enough About Me.

It comes just three months after the iconic Hollywood tough guy shocked fans with his skinny, fragile appearance at WWCC in Philadelphia on May 9 when he talked about his book, due out on November 17.

Recounting a life in film, Burt has previously mentioned that the book will talk about the people he has worked with over the years, both good and bad.

'Setting the record straight is something that I have wanted to do for a while now, and with this book I will,' he said in a statement in July when publisher G.P. Putnam's Sons announced the book.

'This will be a project that will go into many areas I have never discussed.'

Burt Reynolds shocked fans recently when the once-strapping sex symbol made a rare public appearance, looking gaunt, frail, and using a cane.

The 79-year-old Hollywood legend appears to be facing a common problem among the elderly, which is the sudden loss of muscle mass and body weight. The condition often leads to difficulty walking and performing routine tasks. 

In Reynolds’ case, his thin appearance is a striking contrast to his public persona as a macho leading man. However, a top internist tells Newsmax Health, that frailty is not an inevitable fact of aging.

“Becoming thin and losing strength does happen, but I have patients in their 80s who look younger than some I have who are in their 50s,” says Michael Zimring, M.D., an internist at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, Md., who has not treated Reynolds. “It all depends on the way they live.”

It may seem unlikely that a man such as Reynolds – so fit in his younger years that he played fullback for the Florida State football team – would end up so frail. But a string of serious health problems may have contributed to his weight loss. 

Back in the 1980s, when filming the movie City Heat, he was struck in the face with a metal chair, which broke his jaw and left him with a painful condition called temporo-mandibular joint dysfunction, or TMJ disorder. 

Unable to eat, he lost 30 pounds from his 5-foot-11 frame. Reynolds also became addicted to painkillers, a habit that took him several years to break. 

In 2009 he underwent back surgery and in 2010 he had a quintuple heart bypass. He reportedly had trouble eating following the heart operation, and again lost a large amount of weight, sparking rumors he had AIDS. He nearly died from a bout with the flu in early 2014...
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