A guide to STEMI, Q waves, and other heart-attack terms.

The term "heart attack" does an excellent job conveying the severity of an all-too-common event. But it hides a remarkable diversity of medical emergencies that differ in cause, geography, consequences, and initial treatment.

We use "heart attack" as shorthand for myocardial infarction (MI) — an interruption of blood flow to part of the heart muscle that damages or destroys a swath of heart cells. Here is a guide to the names that doctors give to different types of heart attacks.

Acute coronary syndrome Doctors lump heart attacks into an even ...

Portable monitors help identify a common thief of sleep and cardiovascular health.

Sleep apnea, a nighttime breathing pattern of held breaths and explosive snores, is bad for the body and the heart. Diagnosing this ailment, which is all too common in people with heart disease, usually requires you to spend a night in a hospital's sleep center hooked up to various recorders. Portable devices that can detect sleep apnea in the comfort of your own bed now offer a convenient alternative.

Apnea (APP-nee-uh) is derived from the Greek terms for "without breathing." People with sleep apnea briefly stop breathing dozens ...

Trade in time spent sitting for something else.

"Too much TV may lead to shorter life." Headlines like that one flooded the media after the publication of an Australian study linking time spent watching television with higher chances of dying from cardiovascular disease. Television watching in itself probably wasn't to blame, unless a steady visual diet of reality shows, crime dramas, and sitcoms damages the heart by numbing the mind. Sitting is the more likely culprit.

If you are like most Americans, you sit for most of the hours you are awake. A handful of studies on inactivity and health ...

While saturated fat isn't a health food, it isn't a complete demon, either.

In most situations, the KISS principle — which stands for Keep It Simple, Stupid — is a logical and practical guide. Sometimes, though, simplifying can have disastrous results. Take the case of dietary fat.

Back in 1957, the American Heart Association (AHA) proffered its first guidelines for a heart-healthy diet. In a nutshell, the AHA said that diet may influence heart disease, that both the fat content and total calories in a person's diet were important, and that people should consume less saturated fat and more unsaturated ...

Guidelines for whether or not people with diabetes should take a daily aspirin to prevent heart attacks have been revised based on risk.

The challenges of maintaining a medication regimen for a long period of time are compounded by diminishing belief in their effectiveness

Brief reports on migraines and stroke risk, HDL's potential role in lowering cancer risk, unhealthy food ads on TV, and the benefits of defibrillators in public places.

Heart Letter readers share their tips for living with heart disease.

Home grown tips for quitting smoking A recent letter from a Harvard Heart Letter reader asked about how to stop smoking. She had tried hard to do this in the past, but without success. In the May 2010 issue, Editor in Chief Dr. Thomas Lee answered this reader's question by outlining the most effective steps available today and offering a glimpse of future options. Equally practical advice came from dozens of Heart Letter readers who mailed and e-mailed with the creative and highly personal ways they kicked their own ...

Your article on mitral valve surgery didn't mention how often someone like me - with mild regurgitation from a leaky mitral valve but no symptoms - should have his or her valve checked. Are there any standards for this?

  After a heart attack 15 years ago, my doctor put me on 200 milligrams of amiodarone daily to halt episodes of ventricular tachycardia. I started a vigorous exercise program that has gradually improved my ejection fraction from 35% to 55%. Three years ago, I started cutting back on amiodarone because of side effects. My latest electrocardiogram showed no signs of ventricular tachycardia, and my doctor wants me to stop taking amiodarone. That worries me. Any thoughts on what I should do?