Heart surgery? Slate it for the afternoon

PARIS - The risk of serious heart problems after open heart surgery nearly doubles when the operation is performed in the morning rather than the afternoon, researchers said on Friday.

Experiments and lab tests pointed to our biological clock as the primary cause of the startling difference in outcomes, they reported in the medical journal The Lancet.

"Our study found that postsurgery heart damage is more common among people who have heart surgery in the morning," said lead author David Montaigne, a cardiologist at the University of Lille.