ick Cheney suffered his first heart attack at age 37, during his first campaign for Wyoming's US House seat in 1978.
Ten years in Congress brought two more heart attacks and, in 1988, quadruple bypass surgery. But Cheney quit smoking, started exercising and, his doctors say, avoided further troubles throughout a series of high-pressure jobs that included directing the Gulf War as secretary of defense.
In fact, he was on the treadmill yesterday morning at 6:22 when George W. Bush called to make him his running mate, said Bush's communications director, Karen Hughes.
Independent cardiologists declined yesterday to outline a specific prognosis for Cheney, 59, without knowing the details of his medical history. But they said that if his cholesterol levels and stress-test results are good and he has no symptoms of continued heart disease, he has a good chance of staying healthy during a four-year stint as vice president.
For someone of Cheney's age without symptoms, ''the odds are very low, maybe 1 to 3 percent, that they will get into any significant trouble in a given year,'' said Ira S. Ockene, director of preventive cardiology at the UMass Medical Center in Worcester.
Houston heart specialist Denton Cooley gave Cheney the green light after speaking at Bush's request with Cheney's cardiologist, Jonathan Reiner of Washington, D.C. ''Mr. Cheney's health problems in the past should not interfere with a strenuous political campaign,'' Cooley said in a statement.
Some voiced concern anyway. ''I don't understand how a man who had three heart attacks gets to be a heartbeat away from the presidency,'' said New York pollster John Zogby.
Others note that the vice presidency - sometimes the butt of jokes for its often-ceremonial role - is hardly more stressful than the other jobs Cheney has held since his surgery. He is currently chief executive officer of Halliburton Corp., an energy company based in Dallas.
And stress is a relative thing, doctors say. Deeb Salem, chairman of medicine at New England Medical Center and former president of the American Heart Association's New England affiliate, said intense jobs are not inherently health risks, especially for those who thrive on pressure.
Cheney takes cholesterol-lowering medication, according to Hughes, who said the Bush campaign is debating whether to release more details on his long list of medications.
This year 1.1 million Americans will have a new or recurrent coronary attack, and more than 40 percent will die as a result, the American Heart Association estimates. But with increasingly effective preventive measures, people have a better chance of a long life if they survive the attack.
Twelve years after Cheney's bypass operation, Deeb said, the key questions are ''plumbing issues'': Has the bypass developed a blockage, or have new blockages developed in other areas?
There are three indicators of potential problems, he said:
Does he have symptoms such as chest pains?
How strong is his heart? Normally, the heart squeezes 50 percent of the blood in it with each beat. Heart attacks can damage the muscle and cut that percentage.
How did he do on his last stress test? In this procedure, a radioactive substance is injected into the blood and tracked while the patient runs on a treadmill to see whether enough blood flows to the heart.
''If he flunked all three of those, I'd say the chance of him having a bad event in the next four years is pretty high,'' Deeb said. But if all three indicators look good, he said, those chances are dramatically reduced.
Politicians have long debated whether the public has a right to know such details, but they are legitimate questions, he said.
Other health concerns in Cheney's life have included the removal of a skin cancer, Hughes said.
And, she added, he is allergic to pomegranates.
Anne E. Kornblut of the Globe Staff contributed from Austin, Texas. Material from The Associated Press also was used.
