Seoul, South Korea — North Korean chief Kim Jong Un has regained weight and seems to have obesity-related well being issues akin to hypertension and diabetes, and his officers are in search of new medicines overseas to deal with them, South Korea’s spy company informed lawmakers Monday. The 40-year-old Kim, recognized for heavy ingesting and smoking, comes from a household with a historical past of coronary heart issues.
Each Kim’s father and grandfather, who dominated North Korea earlier than his 2011 inheritance of energy, died of coronary heart points.
Some observers stated Kim, who’s about 5 ft, 7 inches tall and beforehand weighed 308 kilos, appeared to have misplaced a considerable amount of weight in 2021, probably from altering his eating regimen. However current movies run by the North’s state managed media present he has regained the load.
On Monday, the Nationwide Intelligence Service, South Korea’s most important spy company, informed lawmakers in a closed-door briefing that Kim is estimated to weigh about 308 kilos once more and is in a high-risk group for coronary heart illness, based on Lee Seong Kweun, one of many lawmakers.
Lee stated the NIS informed lawmakers that Kim has proven signs of hypertension and diabetes since his early 30s. One other lawmaker, Park Sunwon, stated the NIS believes Kim’s weight problems is linked to his ingesting, smoking and stress.
Lee and Park quoted the NIS as saying it obtained intelligence that North Korean officers have been making an attempt to get new medicines overseas for Kim’s suspected hypertension and diabetes.
North Korea is without doubt one of the most secretive nations on the planet, and there may be just about no method for outsiders to know Kim’s precise well being circumstances. The NIS additionally has a spotty report in confirming developments in North Korea.
Kim’s well being is the main target of eager consideration outdoors North Korea since he hasn’t formally anointed a successor who would take cost of the nation’s advancing nuclear arsenal concentrating on the US and its allies if he was incapacitated.
The NIS in its Monday briefing maintained its evaluation that Kim’s preteen daughter, reportedly named Kim Ju Ae, is bolstering her probably standing as her father’s inheritor obvious. However the NIS stated it can not rule out the likelihood that she might be changed by one in all her siblings as a result of she hasn’t been formally designated as her father’s successor.
Hypothesis about Kim Ju Ae, who’s believed to be 10 or 11 years outdated, flared when she accompanied her father at high-profile public occasions beginning in late 2022.
State media referred to as her Kim Jong Un’s “most beloved” or “revered” baby and churned out video and photographs proving her rising political standing and closeness together with her father. She is assumed to have two siblings, at the least one in all them a boy, however they’ve not been placed on public show by the Kim regime.
The NIS informed lawmakers that at the least 60% of Kim Ju Ae’s public actions have concerned attending navy occasions together with her father.
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