Vice President Dick Cheney’s Life Followed The Arc Of The Biggest Breakthroughs In Cardiovascular Medicine

BY WILLIKAM CORNWELL

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF CARDIOLOGY,

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO ANSCHULTZ

MEDICAL CAMPUS

The life and political legacy of former Vice President Dick Cheney, who died on Nov. 4, 2025, at the age of 84, has been well documented. But his decades-long battle with heart disease may be less appreciated.

Cheney benefited from almost every major advance made in cardiovascular medicine. These breakthroughs enabled him to sustain an active political career and gave him additional years of an enjoyable life after he moved away from the political spotlight.

As a cardiologist who specializes in both sports medicine and heart disease, as well as advanced heart failure and transplant cardiology, I frequently provide care for patients who, like Cheney, are supported by powerful medicines and procedures to help support heart function.

Cheney’s passing provides an opportunity to reflect on the rapid evolution in medical technology, especially in the past half-century, that improved the lifespan and overall quality of life for Cheney, as well as millions of heart patients around the world.

The formative days of cardiac medicine

Cheney suffered his first of five heart attacks at age 37, in 1978, when the standard of care mainly involved pain relief and bed rest, and when medical professionals did not yet have a clear understanding of what causes heart attacks in the first place.

Today, doctors understand that a heart attack occurs when blood flow through an artery is blocked by a blood clot called a thrombus and oxygen cannot get to the heart muscle. Imagine a kink in a hose that prevents water passing through it. When the heart muscle does not receive oxygen for a long enough period of time, the heart muscle will die and a scar will form.

In the 1960s and ’70s, however, doctors thought a thrombus was the result of – not the cause of – a heart attack.

It is now clear that the formation of a thrombus leads to a heart attack rather than the other way around. That important lesson revolutionized the way doctors like me treat patients with heart attacks.

Big and small breakthroughs

Today, we reopen arteries with stents. When stents are not available, we use powerful medications called thrombolytics, or clot-busters, to break down the thrombus. These kinds of treatments seem commonplace today, but it wasn’t until 1988 that a pivotal study showed combining aspirin and streptokinase, a clot-buster drug, improved survival after a heart attack by almost 50%.

Cheney had additional heart attacks in 1984, 1988, 2000 and 2010. Notably, all but the last were during election years, underscoring the detrimental effects of stress on heart health. His heart attack in 2000 occurred as the courts worked to determine whether Al Gore or George W. Bush – with whom Cheney would become vice president – had won the presidential election.

As technology advanced over the years, Cheney had multiple angioplasties – a procedure to open up narrowed or blocked arteries. During an angioplasty, a procedure developed in the 1980s, heart doctors would place a balloon made of flexible polymers inside an artery to open up and clear the thrombus.

While angioplasties were helpful, one of the main limitations was that the walls of the artery would quickly shrink back – known as recoiling – after the balloon was deflated.

How stents became mainstream

That limitation led to the concept of stents – devices that are now frequently used to treat heart attack patients.

Cheney’s first heart attack in 1978 occurred well before the first stents became available.

Stents started out as metal, tubelike structures that cardiologists used to open up narrowed or blocked blood vessels. The original stents, made of stainless steel, fixed the problem of blood vessels recoiling.

But over time, cardiologists found that stents become stenotic, meaning they themselves would become narrow, making it difficult for blood to flow through them. This problem was solved with the introduction of drug-eluting stents, which have a polymer that coats the metal struts of a stent and prevents stenosis from occurring.

Drug-eluting stents were a game-changer and reduced the need for repeated procedures by about 50% to 70%. Like millions of Americans, Cheney received several stents during his long battle with heart disease.

While stents are helpful, sometimes patients require a surgery called coronary artery bypass graft. Heart surgeons perform this procedure when there are blockages that angioplasty or a stent cannot fix, or when there are too many blockages in the heart arteries.

In 1988, at age 47, Cheney underwent a quadruple bypass operation to help restore blood flow to his heart following his third heart attack.

Battling heart disease

Despite the best efforts of cardiologists, many patients with heart disease, like Cheney, go on to develop heart failure.

There are two main types of heart failure. One – called heart failure with preserved ejection fraction – occurs when the left ventricle, the largest and strongest chamber of the heart, becomes stiff and unable to relax.

The other type – heart failure with reduced ejection fraction – occurs when the left ventricle becomes enlarged and weakened, and fails to pump blood efficiently.

Both types of heart failure make it difficult for the heart to adequately pump blood throughout the body. Cheney, like millions of people throughout the world, suffered from a dilated and weakened heart.

Fortunately, now there are several classes of medications used to treat the kind of heart failure that Cheney suffered from.

There are four main types of drugs that heart failure cardiologists use to manage patients with this condition, which are referred to as the “four pillars” of heart failure management. These medications work together to reduce the amount of stress placed on the heart and to create an environment that helps a weakened heart pump blood more efficiently throughout the body.

Thanks to these four medication types, millions of patients with dilated, weak hearts are living much longer with a higher quality of life and staying out of the hospital. Some of these medications are also used for patients with stiffened hearts, but there is a lot of ongoing research to better understand how to take care of patients with that kind of heart failure.

Despite the use of medications to treat dilated, weak hearts, some patients suffer from continued weakening of the heart muscle and progress to end-stage, or advanced, heart failure. When this happens, there are only two treatment options available. These options are a mechanical pump or a heart transplant.

Heart transplantation is the gold-standard, preferred treatment option for advanced heart failure that results from a dilated, weakened heart.

In 2023, there were about 4,500 heart transplants in the U.S. and about 2,200 in Europe. On average, patients live well over a decade with a heart transplant, and many will go on to live for 20 to 30 more years.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure

Benjamin Franklin famously quipped, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

In an interview with “60 Minutes” in 2013, Cheney said his heart disease was the result of genetics and an unhealthy lifestyle. He admitted that he drank beer, ate fatty foods and also smoked three packs of cigarettes per day.

Millions of people across the U.S. and Europe have a lifestyle that is similar to that of Cheney’s prior to his heart transplant. While heart patients benefit from medications, stents and surgeries, preventive strategies cannot be underestimated.

Almost all major health organizations, including the American Heart Association, American Cancer Society and the Department of Health and Human Services, recommend 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity exercise.

This recommendation translates to a brisk walk about 30 minutes per day, five days per week. This level of exercise leads to large increases in survival and preservation of overall health throughout a lifetime.

While Cheney lived through five heart attacks, the goal for patients and their doctors is to avoid the first. Scientific advances in cardiology have led to a dramatic improvement in survival and quality of life for millions of people, but preventive measures are still by far the most effective lifesaving measure.

RDEAD ORIGINAL STORY HERE

Devastating Heart Condition Can Be Reversed, Study Shows For First Time

EURASIA REVIEW

Three men who had heart failure caused by the build-up of sticky, toxic proteins are now free of symptoms after their condition spontaneously reversed in an unprecedented case described by a team at UCL (University College London) and the Royal Free Hospital.

The condition, a form of amyloidosis affecting the heart, is progressive and has until now been seen as irreversible, with half of patients dying within four years of diagnosis.

The new study, published as a letter in The New England Journal of Medicine, reports on three men, aged 68, 76 and 82, who were diagnosed with transthyretin cardiac amyloidosis but who later recovered. Their own reports of symptoms improving was confirmed by objective assessments including cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) scans showing that the build-up of amyloid proteins in the heart had cleared.

Lead author Professor Marianna Fontana (UCL Division of Medicine) said: “We have seen for the first time that the heart can get better with this disease. That has not been known until now and it raises the bar for what might be possible with new treatments.”

The researchers also found evidence of an immune response in the three men that specifically targeted amyloid. The amyloid-targeting antibodies were not found in other patients whose condition progressed as normal.

Senior author Professor Julian Gillmore (UCL Division of Medicine), Head of the UCL Centre for Amyloidosis, based at the Royal Free Hospital, said: “Whether these antibodies caused the patients’ recovery is not conclusively proven. However, our data indicates that this is highly likely and there is potential for such antibodies to be recreated in a lab and used as a therapy. We are currently investigating this further, although this research remains at a preliminary stage.”

Transthyretin (ATTR) amyloidosis is caused by amyloid deposits composed of a blood protein called transthyretin (TTR). It can be hereditary or non-hereditary (“wild-type”). The build-up of these protein deposits in the heart is called ATTR amyloid cardiomyopathy (ATTR-CM). Current treatments on the NHS aim to relieve the symptoms of heart failure (which may include fatigue, swelling in the legs or abdomen, and shortness of breath with activity), but do not tackle the amyloid (although a number of “gene-silencing” therapies are currently being trialled which reduce TTR protein concentration in the blood and thereby slow ongoing amyloid formation).

Advances in imaging techniques – some of which were pioneered at the UCL Centre for Amyloidosis – has meant substantially more people being diagnosed with the disease than was the case 20 years ago. Previously, diagnosis needed a biopsy (involving tissue taken from the heart).

The imaging techniques also mean the burden of amyloid on the heart, and consequently the progression of the disease, can be more precisely monitored, making it easier to detect cases where the condition has reversed, rather than merely remaining stable.

The latest study, supported by the Royal Free Charity, began when one man aged 68 reported his symptoms improving. This prompted the research team to look through records of 1,663 patients diagnosed with ATTR-CM. Out of these patients, two more cases were identified.

The three men’s recoveries were confirmed via blood tests, several imaging techniques including echocardiography (a type of ultrasound), CMR scans and scintigraphy (a nuclear medicine bone scan), and, for one patient, an assessment of exercise capacity. CMR scans showed heart structure and function had returned to a near-normal state and amyloid had almost completely cleared.

An in-depth look at the records and assessments for the rest of the 1,663 cohort indicated that these three patients were the only ones whose condition had reversed.

One of the three men underwent a heart muscle biopsy that revealed an atypical inflammatory response surrounding the amyloid deposits (including white blood cells known as macrophages), suggesting an immune reaction. No such inflammatory response was detected in 286 biopsies from patients whose disease had followed a normal progression.

Investigating this further, the researchers found antibodies in the three patients that bound specifically to ATTR amyloid deposits in mouse and human tissue and to synthetic ATTR amyloid. No such antibodies were present in 350 other patients in the cohort with a typical clinical course.

If these antibodies could be harnessed, they could be combined with new therapies being trialled that suppress TTR protein production, enabling clinicians to clear away amyloid as well as preventing further amyloid deposition.

One such promising therapy is a single intravenous infusion of NTLA-2001, a novel gene-editing therapy based on CRISPR/Cas9. Early results of the trial, led by Professor Gillmore, indicate it may stop disease progression.*

The UCL Centre for Amyloidosis is one of the world’s leading centres for amyloid research. It includes the NHS National Amyloidosis Centre, the only centre in the UK specialising in amyloidosis.

Jon Spiers, chief executive of the Royal Free Charity, said: “As an NHS charity, we are proud to be supporting this research. Our priority is to drive early-stage research that brings innovative treatments to patients sooner.

“This work not only represents a major breakthrough in our understanding of cardiac amyloidosis, but crucially opens up new possibilities for more effective treatment options. It’s a hugely significant development that we welcome on behalf of all patients of the National Amyloidosis Centre and their families, many of whom have contributed to our research funding with their own fundraising efforts.”

The Royal Free Charity is the NHS charity partner of the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust and the only UK charity directly supporting the work of the National Amyloidosis Centre.

* This is the first-ever human trial in which CRISPR/Cas9, a Nobel Prize-winning technology that makes a cut in the cells’ DNA and inserts a new genetic code, has been infused intravenously as a medicine to inactivate a target gene in a specific organ – in this case, the liver where TTR protein is made.

Michael Jackson: Remembering and the Celebration of Life

June 25, 2009, was what looked like a beautiful day when I woke up in the morning for another thank Lord, I made it day, feeling summer all around me. And the coastal weather did look nice through the afternoon. Nobody had expected any sad story, not of Michael Jackson.

Around some minutes after three o'clock in the afternoon, a friend called me and said, "Michael Jackson is dead. He had suffered a cardiac arrest at his Holmby Hills home. Doctors couldn't revive him."

"What?" I said.

"Michael Jackson is dead," he further exclaimed.

"I am stunned, let me call you back," I said.

On the other line was my daughter whom I guess was coming up with the same breaking news of Michael's death. "Dad, did you hear what happened?" she asked.

"Michael Jackson died, right?" I said.

While my daughter was still on the phone, another call came from Maryland whose voice wasn't clear -- Michael's death has broken people down and everybody is talking about what might have went wrong in the King of Pop's sudden death after going through some rehearsals the previous day in preparation for his O2 Arena concert in London.

"Ah, they killed him," my friend, Emeka Amanze, would say. Another call came from a friend who said, "Babe, I know you love music and you love Michael Jackson... it's sad he died." The calls kept coming in, Michael Jackson is dead.

I have been speechless and do not know what to do. Michael Jackson is gone and we all hope he finds peace that eluded him while on Earth.

On June 4, I had blogged on Michael's new image and the O2 Arena concerts coupled with movie deals, record deals, memorabilia, world tour and other packages that was going to net him a staggering four hundred and something million dollars by the time he's done with all the shows. He never made it. He's gone.

I have vivid memories of the 70s Motown blasts. As a little kid, Michael, little as well, had already turned what would be Hitsville into something else, evolving from a 5-year-old singing sensation to a superstar by the time he turned 13. The group Jackson 5 had appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show and the whole world had seen a rising star.

While in high school through the late 70s, the Jackson 5 went through many paths --Motown, Philly Sounds and Epic Records. Growing up in the disco era when Harry Wayne Casey and colleagues at TK Records changed our moods catapulting most to the top, disco fever was all over and, the epidemic was widespread and had become hard to find a cure. We all had been stricken by this disease called disco fever and in UK, it was more like the 1920's influenza epidemic.

When disco popped up, Michael was still there, and an incredible talent about to blow up. He had been a Jackson 5 all along, cutting some solo singles on the way. During the days of our high school ballroom dances, proms and other social events around the dorm, Michael was there but not loud enough. There was the pure funk engineered by George Clinton which saw the likes of Bootsy Collins' chained Rubber Band and Uncle Jams Parliament/Funkadelic. And there was the New, New Super Heavy Funk ordained to the Godfather of Soul, James Brown, as Minister, who had been Michael's mentor in those amazing steps. But then again, came da groove, da soul, da funk and da dance, a collective from the three major recording concerns of back in the day studio recordings that exploded in the 70s through the 80s.

Berry Gordy's Motown, Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff's Philly Sounds and Dick Griffey's Sound of Los Angeles Records were the three major labels that produced top performers in between two decades in the class of funk, soul and R&B.

The competition was tight and the vibes came in different flavors. But Michael was special from the moment he went solo after Jackson 5 opened up acts for James Brown, and Gladys Knight and the Pips. That did it. Hits upon hits were made. "ABC." "I Want You Back." "I'll Be There," etc. and Michael's number one single on the Billboard charts "Got To Be There."

I was not into Michael and all the Jackson growing up tunes which blended rock, soul and funk until the Jacksons first all out written songs produced the album "Destiny." That was in the summer of 1978 and the single "Blame It On The Boogie" began to jam around all the pubs, the hangouts and in my neck of the woods. You don't blame it on the sunshine, you don't blame it on the moonlight, you blame it on the boogie; such was the vibe.

Also, before the "Destiny" album smashes, Teddy Pendergrass' "Life Is A Song Worth Singing," album, Chic's "Le Freak Ces't Shit," Fat Larry's Band "Down On The Avenue," George Clinton's "One Nation Under A groove," Brass Construction's "Changing," B.T. Express' "Bus Stop," T Connection's "Do What Ya Wanna Do," and the reggae explosions of U Roy, I Roy, Nicodemus, Prince Jazzbo, Dillinger, Mighty Diamonds, Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Bunny Wailer, Johnny Clark, Max Romeo, Burning Spear, Lee "Scratch" Perry coupled with the studio time sessions of Sly Dumbar and Robbie Shakespeare, had made significant impacts in my days, growing up.

"Destiny" changed all that and Michael had just arrived, independent, free of Gordy, an adult, already 20 and ready to prove his point. In every gathering, ballroom dances, the melting nite clubs, even at the makeshift mama put, the roadside food joints, "Shake Your Body (Down To The Ground)" was the song of all songs. Anywhere you go, you got to shout, dance and shake your body to the ground because the rhythm was so compelling one had no choice. Yes, let's dance, let's shout... A blend of of some soul, jazz and funk had been ushered in and disco had begun to wane.

Da moves, da groove, da dance and da funk, Michael turned everything around. In every party you got to shake that your body to the ground. But hey, it wasn't long after the overwhelming commercial success of the "Destiny" album that the original studio rat, Quincy Jones, found home in the complex of Epic Records for a thorough and tasty dish we all will be licking our fingers up until today.

The year was 1979, and it was around summer, I think, and we were just hanging out on the front porch of Esther's Beer Parlor at 21 Item Street, D-Line, Port Harcourt, and everybody was just loud, perhaps for the fact that US and UK imports invaded our entire neigborhood. This was before Boy George's Culture Club and Eurythmics invaded the United States. Yes, it was nothing but US, UK imports overshadowing our local ensembles -- Wings, The Apostles, Doves, Heads Funk, SJOB Movement, Black Children, Black Souls and the rest.

Hanging out at Esther's and academic pursuits, and youths on job hunts, was just fun. There was Kaje Igwah, George Ekweh, Fidelis Awasianya, Mike Uzoma (I nicknamed him Jack Lord, and he took it), Onyema Uche, Mike Ozulumba, Kawawa (never knew his real name), Ajamiwe "Ajammy Junky" Ihekwoba, Obiora Ihekwoba, Cornelius "Hugo" Kanu, Charles Douglas, Joy Douglas, Eddie Bongo Brown of Nteje who loved storytelling and numerous others. The girls stopped by a whole lot and the gist always was about Michael and what had happened to the music world.

Da moves, da groove, da dance and da funk, Michael Jackson, a new era had just begun. Igwah, Ekweh and I had just been back from what youngsters normally do. We walked into the complex of 21 Item Street, and the place was being blasted with some loud speakers set up by Ajamiwe, and the music was what the studio rat had cooked for a year, and the artist was none other than Michael, and the album was "Off the Wall," and the track was "Don't Stop till You Get Enough," and it was all boys and girls, and the party had just begun and we all had fun. Never have I seen anything like that. Da moves, da groove, da dance and da funk, Michael Jackson, it's a new era.

So did the grooves of Michael's vibes and those amazing steps took us to the jams at Orupolo Nite Club, Lido Nite Club, Manatee and the Presidential Hotel Night Club on Aba Road. You can never stop until you get enough. Every dish in "Off the Wall" was well cooked and tasty. Quincy Jones, the studio rat, did it here superbly. Michael has exceeded superstardom, but the best is yet to come.

I was in Lagos and my hangouts were similar to the Port Harcourt days. There was the Afternoon Jump at the National Assembly complex that had been turned to jam sessions, and radio DJ's, Pat Oke, Jacob Akinyemi Johnson, Bode Seriki and many others stopped by to spin, and Michael's "Off the Wall" was always on top. Michael has taken over all the airwaves rocking every soul.

Da moves, da groove, da dance and da funk. Everybody wants to be like Mike. The glittering white socks. The tux. The gloves. The handcrafted custom made shoes. Michael conquered the universe. It was all over the pubs in Lagos. Club Phoenicia at Bristol Hotel. Gondola Nite Club. Ikoyi Hotel. Jazz Temple. Club Ace. Fantasy Nite Club. Tagged Restaurant. Durbar Hotel Night Club. Ritz. Hot Spot. The local pot-smoking joints in the ghettos of Ajegunle, Mushin, Agege, Iponri, Amukoko, Orile, Olodi and the surrounding red light districts, you name it, Michael was all over rocking with every soul. He was simply the best. I had emulated my rhythm and dance steps from him. And we never stopped until we got enough.

The studio rat had thought about Michael's remarkable success and how "Off the Wall" brought in a new era. He went back to Epic to prepare some more delicious dishes. Right On, Black Beat, Hit Parader and Rolline Stone Magazines wrote extensively about it -- a new blend had been in the making.

As of 1981, when Brothers Johnson, Kool & the Gang, Shalamar, Dynasty, Delegation, Whispers and Klymax had trooped to rock National Theater, Orile, Iganmu, courtesy of Ben Bruce Murray's Silverbird Productions, we Michael fanatics wondered what had happened in a new album. But our worries would soon be over.

In 1982, what would be the biggest selling album in history -- covering rock, funk, soul, R&B and jazz funk in a new generation -- was out with all casts. Eddie Van Halen. "Beat It," "Billy Jean," "Thriller," "Wanna Be Starting Something," and all that funk. The music videos, first of its kind in the modern era. The concerts and all the awards. Motown's 25th Anniversary and hell getting loose upon Michael performing the moonwalk suspense "Billy Jean." The Grammys. The Hollywood Walk of Fame.

There was nothing like that moment when Motown came home as predicted by Diana Ross in "Someday We'll Be Together." I watch that classic all the time for many reasons: memories, my boyhood, Michael's "Billy Jean," Richard Pryor's character, Diana Ross, Berry Gordy and how he built Motown and developed Hitsville.

When the 1984 Grammy Award nominees were announced, the news spread fast. I had walked into Suru Lere Nite Club for happy hours with my colleagues before the jam sessions. The news was all over. And we were in Lagos not in Hollywood. Michael's "Thriller" had 12 nominations. Lionel Richie had been assigned to MC the one of its kind function. Puerto Rican native, Irene Cara, had been scheduled to perform her hit single "What A Feeling." The talk was all over town. The newspapers and magazines carried it. Michael Jackson had won 8 of 12 Grammy nominations including Best Rock, "Beat It," smashing all records. Michael Jackson is the new King of Pop. He earned it.

And right now, we have a legend. It's a bottleneck driving through the Jackson's family compound on Havenhurst and Ventura Blvd. in Encino. The entire area around his Holmby Hills home by Sunset is totally closed to the public. There has been a 24/7 vigil on his star in Hollywood. His songs are played 24/7 on every station that knows what the stuff is all about.

Michael, you are a legend. The King of Pop. You called the shots in showbizness.

Rest In Peace, my man!
Michael Jackson visits Freddie Mercury backstage. 1980.

Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney, who team up on duets, are seen recently in a recording studio. Jackson was 5 when the Beatles invaded America. He and McCartney also spend hours together watching cartoons. Both are collectors. (1983). Image: Linda McCartney.

The Jackson 5, the famous pop singer group, where Michael Jackson began his singing career at age five with his four brothers, pose with legendary singer Diana Ross. (1970)

A Tribute To The King Of Pop Michael Jackson