NEW YORK • As a presidential candidate, Mr Donald Trump quoted a letter from his former personal doctor gushing about his apparently excellent health - a note the physician now says that Mr Trump "dictated" himself.

Speaking to CNN on Tuesday, New York doctor Harold Bornstein said Mr Trump "dictated that whole letter. I didn't write that letter".

"I just made it up as I went along."

In December 2015, the Trump campaign released the glowing missive which said that "if elected, Mr Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency".

The Manhattan doctor months later said he wrote the note hastily as Mr Trump's car waited.

Dr Bornstein's new comments come as the long-haired, bespectacled physician finds himself back in the spotlight after he told NBC that one of Mr Trump's bodyguards visited his Park Avenue office last year and confiscated the President's medical records.

"They must have been here for 25 or 30 minutes. It created a lot of chaos," Dr Bornstein told NBC, saying the Feb 3 incident last year made him feel "raped, frightened and sad".

Dr Bornstein said the original and only copy of Mr Trump's medical charts, including lab reports under the President's name and various pseudonyms, were taken.

But White House spokesman Sarah Sanders said the incident was "standard procedure". According to Dr Bornstein, the "raid" came two days after The New York Times quoted the doctor as saying he had prescribed Mr Trump a hair growth medicine for years.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE