The book, Who Moved My Cheese?, is the first best seller of Spencer Johnson. [br

Spencer Johnson, a onetime physician and children’s book author, whose best-selling books on business management, including The One-Minute Manager and Who Moved My Cheese ?, sold millions of copies and inspired a cultlike following, died July 3 at a hospital.

A new study shows that intentionally throwing off the timing of a heart’s contractions can effectively treat a failure to pump sufficient blood. In about a quarter of the five million Americans with the condition known as heart failure, the organ’s chambers fail to contract in perfect synchrony. When pacemakers are implanted to restore favorable timing — known as cardiac resynchronization therapy — the heart often ends up stronger than in heart failure patients who never had out-of-step contractions.