from the Guardian UK:
Silvio Berlusconi's fondness for partying has also taken a physical and political toll on the Italian prime minister, according a friend in contact with the US embassy in Rome.
Giampiero Cantoni, the then chairman of the Italian Senate's defence committee, was quoted in a leaked embassy cable from October 2009 as saying the results of medical tests on Berlusconi had come back "a complete mess". He told an embassy official "we are all worried about his health".
Berlusconi had fainted in public three times in recent years, and his "frequent late nights and penchant for partying hard mean he does not get sufficient rest", Cantoni said.
The cable disclosed that when the current US ambassador in Rome, David Thorne, paid his first call on the prime minister the previous month, "Berlusconi dozed off briefly".
Thorne quoted Berlusconi's right-hand man, the former journalist Gianni Letta, as having said that a string of scandals last year over the leader's private life had left him "physically and politically weak". He said the normally hyperactive billionaire-turned-politician was "not energetic". ............(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/02/silvio-berlusconi-health-party-wikileaks