To help us understand heart disease and the latest advancements in treating it, we're joined by Dr. David Meyerson, a cardiologist with Johns Hopkins University and national spokesman for the American Heart Association. Welcome, Dr. Meyerson. Margaret, a pleasure. All the descriptions of what Dick Cheney had is always that he had three mild heart attacks. Can I say briefly I'm not his cardiologist, nor do I have the benefit of examining him, nor do I have any political agenda so you've asked me to talk about the science.
Heart attacks come in all shapes and sizes.
You can take out a large amount of heart muscle, for example, if it was a car engine, you can destroy three or four cylinders worth of power. Minor heart attacks or mild ones may destroy half a cylinder of power or none at all. They literally come in all shapes and sizes. All right, and so - but in a heart attack describes what happens. Heart attacks are often caused by blockages that nourish the muscles.