(This is either nothing or an interesting message to the world.)

-----

Tuesday February 20 11:07 AM ET
CIA Sees Less Heart-Disease Risk for World Leaders

By David Morgan

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - World leaders have a far lower risk of coronary heart disease than in past decades with maybe only two this year likely to suffer events that could cause short-term disability but probably not force them from office, a CIA study showed.

Doctors from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency examined news reports to study 64 heads of government who suffered their first attack of chest pain, irregular heart beat or heart attack while
in office between Jan. 1, 1970, and Dec. 31, 1999.

The incidence rate of coronary heart disease among world leaders slid 42 percent over the 30-year period to a level comparable to that of U.S. men in general, probably because of readier preventive treatments for ailments such as diabetes, hypertension and elevated cholesterol levels.

A change of a head of state can trigger fears of political instability in many countries, but the study released on Tuesday said that at current rates only one or two world leaders could be expected to have ``a coronary heart disease event'' per year.

And the chance that they would die within 12 months of a first coronary heart disease event plunged to zero in the 1990s from 52 percent 20 years earlier, thanks to new treatments and rehabilitation methods.

``Policymakers should not regard news (related to heart disease) ... in a head of government with great apprehension. The most probable result will be short-term disability but no major change in governance,'' the CIA concluded.

``It is common knowledge that principal decision-makers receive the best medicines, technology and professional services that their countries can offer or import,'' the CIA study's authors wrote. ``Usually, they can also travel to the best institutions in the world.''

The study did not specify which leaders might be at risk.

No world leader from the 1990s left office within a year of a first heart attack, the study said. But one-third did in the 1980s, as did two-thirds in the 1970s.

The findings were reported in an article published in the medical journal Annals of Internal Medicine, which described cardiovascular disease as the leading cause of natural death among government heads, who are for the most part men.

Yeltsin Dogged By Heath Problem

The hurdle that heart disease can pose for world leadership was illustrated by former Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who underwent a multiple heart bypass in 1996 and spent most of his last year in office in a hospital before stepping down unexpectedly in 1999.

In the United States, where presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Lyndon Johnson were both heart attack survivors, the issue leaped to the foreground again last year when Vice President Dick Cheney suffered a slight heart attack near the end of the contentious 2000 presidential election.

The CIA study said 94 percent of world leaders who suffered a heart attack or another acute problem a decade ago are still alive, compared with 53 percent from the 1980s who survived for a decade or more after having heart problems. The rate was only 15 percent for world leaders from the 1970s.

Improvements in survival rates occurred despite the general population in many parts of the world only now beginning to see a drop in deaths from coronary heart disease. In some areas, such as eastern Europe, coronary heart disease deaths are still on the rise.

The percentage of leaders who left home for cardiac care in the 1990s stood at 44 percent, compared with 37 percent in the 1980s. No foreign care was recorded in the 1970s.

-----