A change of heart
FDR's death shows how much we've learned about the heart
Today, the prevention of heart disease seems like pure common sense, but it wasn't always so obvious. Sixty years ago, the nation's top cardiologists didn't have a clue about how to save the life of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. His death was one in a growing epidemic of cardiovascular disease that spurred researchers to find answers. In 1948, the Framingham Heart Study was launched, and the lives and deaths of 5,209 volunteers from Framingham, Mass., taught the rest of the world just which behaviors and genetic traits put them at risk.
The study continues into its sixth decade, now enrolling the grandchildren of the first volunteers. With three generations of DNA available to researchers, along with meticulous medical records, it offers a wealth of data to explore the genetic roots of heart disease and its risk factors: high blood pressure, high bad cholesterol, low good cholesterol, smoking, diabetes, and obesity.
Daniel Levy is a cardiologist specializing in prevention, a faculty member at Boston University School of Medicine and Harvard Medical School, and director of the Framingham Heart Study. Susan Brink is a senior writer at U.S. News. Their book, A Change of Heart: How the People of Framingham, Massachusetts, Helped Unravel the Mysteries of Cardiovascular Disease (Knopf, $26.95), begins with an eye-opening reminder of just how far we've come.
It was April 12, 1945, and the country was heart-broken. Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United States, died suddenly in what had come to be known as the "Little White House," a cottage in the woods of Pine Mountain near Warm Springs, Ga. The public was unprepared for his death, though for many months his doctors knew that he was gravely ill. In keeping with the culture of the times, his personal physicians hid the grim reality of the president's failing health from the press, from the public, from his family--even from FDR himself. A casualty of an as yet unrecognized epidemic, the leader of the free world slipped away.
Roosevelt, his doctors, and the media had colluded to portray him as the picture of health. Long before he was elected president, in the summer of 1921 when he was 39 years old, he had fallen victim to another epidemic. Polio rendered his legs nearly useless. His walk was seldom photographed, nor was the wheelchair on which he often depended.
Strong and steady. Rumors that Roosevelt was in poor health circulated during his first run for president. The country was in the throes of the Great Depression. America was mired in despair, and Roosevelt needed to prove that he was strong and steady. To still the gossip, he released his medical records in 1931. His blood pressure was 140/100--the 140 systolic only marginally hypertensive but the 100 diastolic a bad omen. Even the most brilliant medical minds of the time possessed neither the knowledge to recognize the gravity of his disease nor the tools to treat it. Shortly after assuming the presidency in 1933, Roosevelt selected Adm. Ross McIntire as his personal physician. McIntire was an ear, nose, and throat specialist whose main concern would be the president's head colds and sinus problems.
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