Daily News from New York, New York • 259

plants undoubtedly has aroused the public's interest in the heart and its care. Detailed drawings and studies of the heart appear frequently in newspapers and magazines. Office workers discuss "aortas" and "Cholesterol" as though they were everyday words. As the heart becomes the subject for more research and discussion, the "exercise or die" theme attracts more proponents. In the YMCA's "Introduction to Fitness" booklet, Dr.

Wilhelm Raab, a professor at the University of Vermont College of Medicine, says: "Lack of exercise is the major cause of coronary disease." Dr. James Watt, director of the National of many things. It's not due to a single cause." Dr. Moses agrees that physical activity is essential to good health but describes the entire exercise picture as "terribly-complicated." He says: "No one has yet done a long range study of exercise as it pertains to heart disease. All the studies thus far have been retrospective.

What makes the situation so complex is that non-regulated exercise can also cause a heart attack. It's important that a person not push himself while fatigued." The Heart Association medical director feels that disciplined exercise can prove beneficial in most instances to persons having already suffered a coronary. "One of my colleagues was According to eminent cardiologist Dr. White: "It is extremely rare for a person with a healthy heart to suffer a sudden fatal heart attack." Dr. Moses concurs with this judgment.

"Often, the people that drop dead with ostensibly no previous warning of a heart disturbance actually had been warned. They just ignored it. Just the other day, a friend of mine died suddenly of a heart attack. Everyone was shocked by the 'unexpected' death. But only three days before he was stricken, he had made an appointment with his local physician to take a cardiogram.

And a week before that, he had called his lawyer to change his will. Friends of his began to recall that in recent weeks, he had NEWS PHOTO BY BILL MEURER If famed heart specialist Or. Paul Dudley White had his Jogging clubs have thousands of enthusiasts. Most doc-way about it, he'd "put everyone in America on bicycles." tors consider it vital that everyone does some exercise. inexplicably waited on street corners while the light changed several times.

He wanted to rest for no reason whatsoever. All evidence indicates that the heart victim had indeed received many warnings, but had chosen to rationalize his pain and discomfort as something other than heart trouble. When he did realize it was something serious, it was too late." Stories persist, too, of the man who walks in for a cardiogram and is reassured by his doctor that his heart is perfect. Just as he walks out, he drops dead. One cardiologist laughs off the tales.

"They're mostly myths," he says, "though car-' diograms aren't 100 per cent accurate or revealing. We cardiologists have heard those stories, too. In fact, we have a little joke about it. When the doctor gives the patient a clean bill of health, and the man keels over at the door, the cardiologist calls out to his nurse: "Move the body so that it looks as though he were coming in!" felled by a heart attack at age 35," says Dr. Moses.

"Six months later, he had another Shortly thereafter, he was put on a light exercise program that consisted of merely walking around the reservoir in his area. Pretty soon, he was jogging around it. The activity restored his confidence and strengthened him at the same time." As for Dr. Moses himself (a rather short, stocky, frenetic individual), he walks a mile or two every day. "Exercise shouldn't be a chore," he says.

"For the average New Yorker, exercise should come naturally. All he must do is walk briskly the short distances he normally would ride. If he still doesn't find the opportunity to walk, I suggest he climb the stairs to his office. What floor are you on? Seven that's fine. It might be a good idea to climb those seven flights once a day." Many persons are terrified by the thought that they can be killed by a single heart attack.

Heart institute, points out that "the medical profession is swinging toward exercise to stimulate the heart muscle and thus decrease heart disease." A study by Dr. Charles W. Frank, associate professor of medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, also tends to confirm the exercise thesis. Dr. Frank supervised an experiment involving 110,000 HIP (Health Insurance Plan) subscribers.

It was conducted with the aid of the National Institute of Health. The dreaded heart attack that concerns medical experts not only decimates hundreds of thousands of middle-aged men each year, but rates as the 10th biggest killer of men in the 20-29 year range. Dr. Campbell Moses, the American Heart Association's medical director, predicts heart disease fatalities will continue to climb for a few more years. "The rise in heart deaths won't go on indefinitely, but we shouldn't look for miracles.

Heart disease is an interplay PAGE 33 NEW YORK SUNDAY NEWS MARCH 24. 1968.