Modern Family star details shock health battle as she reveals she got pacemaker aged 29
The actress, 55, who portrayed Claire Dunphy on the ABC sitcom from 2009 to 2020, opened up about her health woes during an appearance on the Inside of You podcast with Michael Rosenbaum.
During the episode, which aired on July 1, Julie spoke candidly about struggling with the heart rhythm disorder sick sinus syndrome, which was caused by increased activity in her vagus nerve, a condition called hypervagotonia.
She explained that it was her sister, Annie Luetkemeyer, who initially diagnosed her with the condition.
Julie recalled Annie had just graduated from medical school when she stopped to listen to her heart.
'She was at that time in her life when she, I guess, she always carried around a stethoscope. And we were on vacation, and she was like, "I wanna listen to this."
'She was like, "That is not what they've been telling you, and it's not runner's heart or whatever. That means you need to go to a cardiologist."'
According to Julie, her sister 'wouldn't let it go. I was like, "I'm fine." She would not let it go.'
One month later, after filming the pilot of Ed, which premiered in 2000, Julie went and got a pacemaker fitted.
'I was like, "Oh my God. My life is over. This is so weird. I'm gonna die." I don't know what I thought it was, because I was 29.'
'You're lucky you didn't die before that,' Michael, 52, commented.
'They said I wouldn't probably die of it, but I'd start passing out,' Julie replied. 'There was a vague feeling... whenever I was relaxed, really relaxed, I'd be watching TV or movie.
'It felt like I'd been holding my breath for a while, that feeling of light-headedness.'
The normal resting heart rate for women, according to the Cleveland Clinic, is between 60 to 100 beats per minute.
Before having her pacemaker fitted, Julie's resting heart rate was in the 30s.
Julie added that despite having the batteries replaced three times, she often forgets that she has a pacemaker at all.
This isn't the first time Julie has spoken candidly about her health.
In 2023, the actress spoke candidly about getting plastic surgery as soon as her hit TV show Modern Family came to an end in 2020.
'I finally got the stomach fixed,' Julie revealed while holding her belly during an appearance on The View.
'Finally, after all these years. They ripped it open, the twins just ripped it,' she said referencing her 16-year-old sons Gus and John.
'And I said, "As soon as Modern Family is done... I'll get it fixed." But it was 11 years! So 11 years later, we wrapped on Friday and Monday they went in and they do you like a sneaker,' Julie said.
Julie earlier noted that she was age 39 and pregnant with twins when she filmed the pilot episode of Modern Family.
The actress also has 18-year-old son Oliver with her ex-husband Scott Phillips.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
43 minutes ago
- The Independent
RFK Jr. promoted a food company he says will make Americans healthy. Their meals are ultraprocessed
Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Monday praised a company that makes $7-a-pop meals that are delivered directly to the homes of Medicaid and Medicare enrollees. He even thanked Mom's Meals for sending taxpayer-funded meals 'without additives" to the homes of sick or elderly Americans. The spreads include chicken bacon ranch pasta for dinner and French toast sticks with fruit or ham patties. 'This is really one of the solutions for making our country healthy again,' Kennedy said in the video, posted to his official health secretary account, after he toured the company's Oklahoma facility last week. But an Associated Press review of Mom's Meals menu, including the ingredients and nutrition labels, shows that the company's foods are the type of heat-and-eat, ultraprocessed food that Kennedy routinely criticizes for making people sick. The meals contain chemical additives that would render them impossible to recreate at home in your kitchen, said Marion Nestle, a nutritionist at New York University and food policy expert, who reviewed the menu for The AP. Many menu items are high in sodium, and some are high in sugar or saturated fats, she said. 'It is perfectly possible to make meals like this with real foods and no ultra-processing additives but every one of the meals I looked at is loaded with such additives,' Nestle said. 'What's so sad is that they don't have to be this way. Other companies are able to produce much better products, but of course they cost more.' Mom's Meals do not have the artificial, petroleum dyes that Kennedy has pressured companies to remove from products, she noted. Mom's Meals said in an emailed response that its food products 'do not include ingredients that are commonly found in ultra-processed foods.' The company does not use synthetic food dyes, high fructose corn syrup, certain sweeteners or synthetic preservatives that are banned in Europe, said Teresa Roof, a company spokeswoman. The meals are a 'healthy alternative' to what many people would find in their grocery stores, said Andrew Nixon, U.S. Health and Human Services spokesman, in response to questions about Mom's Meals. Mom's Meals is one of several companies across the U.S. that deliver 'medically tailored' at-home meals. The meal programs are covered by Medicaid for some enrollees, including people who are sick with cancer or diabetes, as well as some older Americans who are enrolled in certain Medicare health insurance plans. Patients recently discharged from the hospital can also have the meals delivered, according to the company's website. It's unclear how much federal taxpayers spend on providing meals through Medicaid and Medicare every year. An investigation by STAT news last year found that some states were spending millions of dollars to provide medically tailored meals to Medicaid enrollees that were marketed as healthy and 'dietician approved." But many companies served up meals loaded with salt, fat or sugar — all staples of an unhealthy American's diet, the report concluded. Defining ultraprocessed foods can be tricky. Most U.S. foods are processed, whether it's by freezing, grinding, fermentation, pasteurization or other means. Foods created through industrial processes and with ingredients such as additives, colors and preservatives that you couldn't duplicate in a home kitchen are considered the most processed. Kennedy has said healthier U.S. diets are key to his vision to 'Make America Healthy Again.' His call for Americans to increase whole foods in their diets has helped Kennedy build his unique coalition of Trump loyalists and suburban moms who have branded themselves as 'MAHA." In a recent social media post where he criticized the vast amount of ultraprocessed foods in American diets, Kennedy urged Americans to make healthier choices. 'This country has lost the most basic of all freedoms — the freedom that comes from being healthy," Kennedy said. —
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Pregnant doctor denied Covid-19 vaccine sues Trump administration
A pregnant physician who was denied a Covid-19 vaccine is suing the Trump administration alongside a group of leading doctors associations, charging that the administration sought to 'desensitize the public to anti-vaccine and anti-science rhetoric', according to their attorney. The lawsuit specifically takes aim at health secretary Robert F Kennedy's unilateral decision to recommend against Covid-19 vaccines for pregnant women and healthy children. Kennedy's announcement circumvented expert scientific review panels and flouted studies showing pregnant women are at heightened risk from the virus, and made it more difficult for some to get the vaccine. 'This administration is an existential threat to vaccination in America, and those in charge are only just getting started,' said Richard H Hughes IV, partner at Epstein Becker Green and lead counsel for the plaintiffs in a statement. The American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Physicians and American Public Health Association are among a list of leading physicians associations named as plaintiffs in the lawsuit. Sign up to This Week in Trumpland A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration after newsletter promotion 'If left unchecked, Secretary Kennedy will accomplish his goal of ridding the United States of vaccines, which would unleash a wave of preventable harm on our nation's children,' said Hughes. 'The professional associations for pediatricians, internal medicine physicians, infectious disease physicians, high-risk pregnancy physicians, and public health professionals will not stand idly by as our system of prevention is dismantled. This ends now.' In late May, Kennedy announced that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would no longer recommend Covid-19 vaccines for healthy children or pregnant women. The announcement, made on social media, contradicted a raft of evidence showing pregnant women and infants are at especially high-risk from the disease, including from the administration's own scientific leaders. In June, Kennedy went further by firing all 17 sitting members of a key vaccine advisory panel to the CDC. The advisory panel is a key link in the vaccine distribution pipeline, helping to develop recommendations insurers use when determining which vaccines to cover. That panel met for the first time in late June. Members announced they would review both the childhood vaccine schedule and any vaccines that had not been formally reviewed in seven years. They also recommended against a long vilified vaccine preservative, in spite of a lack of evidence of harm. The news comes amid the largest annual measles case count in 33 years, and amid reports of more parents seeking early vaccination for their children, fearing vaccines will go into shortage or no longer be covered by insurance.
Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
US physician groups sue Kennedy over vaccine policy
July 7 (Reuters) - Several leading medical organizations filed a lawsuit against U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Department of Health and Human Services on Monday, arguing that current policies on COVID-19 vaccines pose an imminent threat to public health. The plaintiffs, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Physicians, American Public Health Association and Infectious Diseases Society of America, have asked the court to vacate Kennedy's recent directive removing the COVID-19 vaccine from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's childhood and pregnant‑women immunization schedules. The lawsuit accuses Kennedy of working "to dismantle the longstanding, Congressionally-authorized, science- and evidence-based vaccine infrastructure that has prevented the deaths of untold millions of Americans." Representatives for HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Lead counsel for the plaintiffs Richard Hughes, a partner at law firm Epstein Becker Green, said he hopes to expedite the case, with a hearing in the next few weeks and a permanent order in the case entered by September. Kennedy, who for decades has sown doubt about the safety of vaccines contrary to evidence and research by scientists, is head of the department that oversees the CDC. He said in May that the CDC would remove the COVID shot from vaccination schedules for healthy children and healthy pregnant women. The complainants alleged that such "baseless and uninformed policy" decisions place critical populations at "grave and immediate risk" of preventable illness, long-term harm, or death. HHS' changes to the COVID vaccine recommendations have led pregnant women and parents to question the value of other recommended vaccines, representatives of the medical societies said. "We're hearing from pediatricians all over the country that parents are having significant concerns about every single vaccine," Susan Kressly, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said at a press conference. In addition to the new directive on COVID vaccines, Kennedy fired all 17 members of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the independent panel of experts that advises the agency on vaccine policy, and replaced them with seven new members, including several who have advocated against vaccines. The lawsuit doesn't address Kennedy's overhaul of that committee. But Hughes told reporters that he expects the new members will take action against other vaccines and the groups plan to amend their complaint when that happens.
