If you've got coronary artery disease, talk to your doctor about choosing exercise over angioplasty.
A German study followed 101 men with chronic chest pain, half of whom started an exercise program and half of whom had stents implanted. At the end of the year, more of the men on the exercise program had no heart attacks or other adverse effects.
The men in the study all had at least a 75 percent narrowing of one artery and were 70 years or older.
Of course, the challenge for patients is sticking with the exercise program, which in the study involved 20 minutes a day on an exercise bike.
For too many people, the exercise bike "ends up being a good thing to hang clothes on," says Dr. Richard Stein, chief of medicine at Beth Israel Medical Center and spokesman for the American Heart Association.
