Heart disease will cost the nation $66.4 billion in 1996, according to the American Heart Association. $9.6 billion of that is for lost output, $10.2 billion for doctors and nurses, $2.8 billion for drugs, and $43.7 billion for hospital and nursing home services.

In 1994, 22,340 people received a heart transplant in the United States. But in 1995, 3,448 people died awaiting transplant organs of all types, according to the United Network on Organ Sharing. (Care to read a Why Files on attempts to use organs from other animals to ease the transplant shortage)?

A Harvard University research team has found that three common procedures for restoring blood flow to the heart could be performed 25 percent less often (in patients over 65) without decreasing survival. The procedures were coronary artery bypass surgery, angioplasty (opening arteries with a balloon-like device), and cardiac catheterization (measuring blood pressure and flow in the heart). What was most crucial to long-term survival in elderly patients? The quality of care during the 24 hours after the attack. Here's the article.

In a study of a largely male group of coronary heart disease patients, the angry ones had the lion's share of heart attacks. These "Type-D" people (the press called them "grumpy old men"), who tended to suppress emotional distress, were 4.1 times as likely to die of all causes as the rest of the patients. So calm down and see "Personality as Independent Predictor" in the bibliography.

Better yet, check out a new, improved method for bypass surgery.