JFK had a bad lower back which worsened with each back surgery he had. Did it contribute to his death as well? JFK , our 35th president was loved by the American People. He was known for his relationships with Marilyn Monroe as well as his marriage to Jackie Onassis. Recent reports are now talking about his legendary struggles with back pain as well which began when he was in college and resulted in four lower back surgeries which may have worsened his condition. JFK had a number of other health problems as well but his back pain was the one condition, according to medical records from 1963 that ultimately may have contributed to his death at the hands of an assassins bullets. A recent article in Popular science is now suggesting that his back problem may have been the reason that he was struck twice by a bullet. The extent of his back problems were well documented, as each surgery caused him more problems, rather than improving his health. The article discusses the theory that when he was shot, a back corset he was wearing may have allowed him to be hit by a second bullet. Popular Science makes an excellent case, of a president of the United States who was murdered in his prime. The idea of the corset being part of the problem here is something I have never heard before but it seems plausible. It sounds like President Kennedy may be alive had he been treated by a chiropractor instead of by a surgeon. Check out the article here. Why doctors are still studying JFK’s chronic back pain Did his back trouble help kill him? By Kate Baggaley John F. Kennedy was known for his youth and energy, but in the decades since his death we’ve realized that there was more to the story: The 35th President of the United States actually battled an impressive collection of medical problems. Among these was agonizing back pain that led Kennedy to undertake four surgeries. “This pain affected him nearly continually from his undergraduate years at Harvard until the day of his assassination,” a pair of physicians wrote earlier this month in the Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine. They have examined Kennedy’s medical records to create a detailed report of the youngest elected President’s pain and how it shaped his career—and possibly even his death in Dallas on November 22, 1963. It’s not clear what exactly was awry, and it's likely that multiple problems were at play. “The imaging studies they used were very primitive,” says coauthor Justin Dowdy, a neurosurgeon at Hot Springs Neurosurgery Clinic in Arkansas. “It’s such a difficult thing to tease out, even with modern-day imaging knowledge, the exact cause of many patients’ back pain.” He and his colleague, T. Glenn Pait, of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences' Jackson T. Stephens Spine and Neurosciences Institute in Little Rock, inspected notes penned by Kennedy’s physicians and images of his spine. They found no evidence of congenital abnormalities or fractures in Kennedy’s spine, contrary to previous speculation. But, as with other famous figures, understanding Kennedy’s medical history can prove illuminating. Pouring through JFK’s medical records drove home how difficult it must have been for him to juggle a political career and events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis with his gnawing, ongoing back pain. “His public image was very discordant with the amount of pain he was in,” Dowdy says. “He wasn’t a young fit healthy guy—he was possibly the 20th century’s sickest President.” A world of hurt Back pain was just one of Kennedy’s maladies; he had a sickly childhood, nearly dying from scarlet fever at one point. Later, he faced stomach, colon, and prostate problems, among other ailments. Kennedy also suffered from Addison’s disease, in which the adrenal glands can’t produce enough of the hormones that help the body respond to stress and regulate blood pressure and blood sugar. Read more