Do NOT do this to me!

Music is good for the heart, or so an experiment on mice would seem to suggest. At Juntendo University Hospital in Tokyo, Japan, Masateru Uchiyama and team performed a number of heart transplants on mice.

The hearts came from unrelated donors, and the mice therefore were expected to reject the donor heart.

Following the operation and for a week, the mice listened to music.

How long the mice lived, seemed to depend on the type of music they listened to. The mice who did the best, survived an average of 26 days on a diet of opera – specifically Verdi’s La Traviata. The Mozart crew lasted 20 days, and Enya mice, 11 days.

Some poor devils were exposed to a monotone and they only lasted seven days, as did the deaf mice listening to La Traviata. (The best way to listen to it, some would say!)

And you’ve properly guessed it, the team is wondering if the same music can support the recuperation from similar operations on Human patients.

We have amazing brains, that given the opportunity will perform miracles, but we all know that when it comes to music and preferences, one man’s meat is another man’s poison.

I’ve often thought, that when my time comes, my last request will be to be hooked up to my favourite music, and I’ll go quietly and joyfully when I’m good and ready…

So call me a heathen if you must! But I’m telling you now – if following an operation you make me listen to either Opera or Mozart, I won’t last 26 days, nor even 20…

My mortal coil will be shuffled off quicker than a virtuoso coloratura!

I’ll be out of here!