“Balloon angioplasties as a treatment for angina (or chest pains) are a case in point, it seems. With an angioplasty, a balloon is inflated inside a constricted coronary blood vessel to widen it, and a stent, or piece of tubular scaffolding, is left behind to keep the vessel permanently open.*2 The operation is unquestionably a lifesaver in emergencies, but it has also proven highly popular as an elective procedure. By 2000, a million precautionary angioplasties were being undertaken in the United States every year, but without any proof that they saved lives. When clinical trials were finally undertaken, the results were sobering. According to The New England Journal of Medicine, for every one thousand nonemergency angioplasties in America, two patients died on the operating table, twenty-eight suffered heart attacks brought on by the procedure, between sixty and ninety experienced a “transient” improvement in their health, and the rest—about eight hundred people—experienced neither benefit nor harm (unless of course you count the cost, the loss of time, and the anxiety of surgery as harm, in which case there was plenty). Despite this, angioplasties remain extremely popular. In 2013, the former president George W. Bush had an angioplasty at the age of sixty-seven, even though he was in good shape and had no sign of heart problems. Bryson, Bill. The Body (pp. 123-124). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. Bryson, Bill. The Body (p. 123). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. ”