The Nation - News from Jan. 14, 1986

A layer of fat surrounding the heart may cause heart attacks by producing chemicals that prompt the growth of leaky new blood vessels in the walls of the heart’s arteries, and the discovery could lead to new ways of preventing heart disease, researchers said. The condition may form blood clots that are often the cause of heart attacks, which kill more than 500,000 Americans each year. The research, being conducted at Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, was presented at a writers’ forum in Sarasosta, Fla.