Studied now confirm what many cardiologists have long suspected - patients admitted to the hospital with heart attacks during the month of December have a significantly higher chance of dying than during other months. There's a good reason for this, it turns out - and here's a case where patients really do have control over their own destiny. Read about it here.

We have talked a lot about treating coronary artery disease on this site over the years, and there are so many options for treatment that sometimes it's easy to overlook the big picture. So here's an article that summarizes the various approaches to treating coronary artery disease, and that provides numerous links if you are interested in more details.

After you've survived a heart attack, you've got a lot to learn about and a lot to think about. While in the good old days you might have had a week or two of hospitalization to go through all the testing, risk assessment, education, and initiation of therapy necessary to optimize your long-term prognosis, today whatever is going to get done must happen in the first three (or four, if you've got a liberal health plan) days.

Doctors and hospitals have mobilized nicely to provide adequate acute care for the patient showing up with an acute heart attack. But too often, many have dropped the ball when it comes to giving appropriate care after those first critical hours.

The key to successfully navigating your way to a long, healthy life after a heart attack is - YOU. You need to insist that the appropriate tests are done, the appropriate referrals are made, and the appropriate medications are begun. To this end, here is a convenient checklist of the things that should be done -- ideally before you even leave the hospital -- after your heart attack.

Now that we've said goodbye to Daylight Savings Time for another 6 months, perhaps (according to researchers reporting in the New England Journal of Medicine last year), we'd be better off saying goodbye forever. That's because, they say, there is an association between switching to DST in the spring, and heart attacks.

Do we really need to add Daylight Savings Time to the long list of useful, enjoyable or fattening pleasures of life that we're supposed to give up? Read about it here.