24.25 Stress and heart attacks. You read a newspaper article that describes a study of whether stress management can help reduce heart attacks. The 107 subjects all had reduced blood flow to the heart and so were at risk of a heart attack. They were assigned at random to three groups. The article goes on to say:

One group took a four-month stress management program, another underwent a four-month exercise program, and the third received usual heart care from their personal physicians.

In the next three years, only three of the 33 people in the stress management group suffered “cardiac events,’’ defined as a fatal or non-fatal heart attack or a surgical procedure such as a bypass or angioplasty. In the same period, seven of the 34 people in the exercise group and 12 out of the 40 patients in usual care suffered such events.