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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHeartbreak Can Literally Kill You
The proverbial broken heart threatens anyone brave enough to put his love and trust into someone else’s hands. It’s that emotional phenomenon your mother warned you about during infamous teen angst years. But what happens when a broken heart is more than just a floor of feelings and actually enters into a physical, sometimes life-threatening state?
You’ve just been broken up with, or worse, a loved one has died and you feel the physical ache within the left cavity of your chest. You may be experiencing a rite of passage through adulthood’s love and loss, or you could be experiencing a life-threatening condition — broken heart syndrome. The blood pumping in and out of your heart becomes temporarily disrupted by a surge of stress hormones, which are secreted in response to devastating news, according to the Mayo Clinic. The contraction in your heart may be more than just a flicker of elevated blood pulsing through a valve, though; it may actually kill you.
In 1991, Japanese researchers first recognized takotsubo cardiomyopathy, also known as stress cardiomyopathy or broken heart syndrome. The condition is characterized by sudden chest pain and shortness of breath and is often triggered by a tragic event, such as living through a car accident or receiving emotionally difficult news. Researchers from Minneapolis Heart Institute studied 200 takotsubo cardiomyopathy patients’ medical histories in order to identify symptomatic clues to get a better understanding of the innards of a broken heart.
It’s not as benign a condition as originally thought,” Dr. Scott Sharkey, a research cardiologist at the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation, told Yahoo News. “The true mortality rate is only becoming manifest as we have a broader experience with this.”
The more fragile a person's health is, the more likely his broken heart could worsen his medical condition. So be gentle with people's hearts, as you would want them to be gentle with your own.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/heartbreak-can-literally-kill-you-study/ar-AA9QSC1?ocid=iehp
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shenmue
(38,506 posts)
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)can have a similar effect. It's not as acute, but I think it can wear people down and diminish their desire to live.
Initech
(100,041 posts)It definitely destroys one's psyche and overall happiness. It's taken me a long time to recover from some of the crap that I've go to go through.
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)I think a lot of us are taken down by these series of disappointments. "Death by a thousand blows". After a while, you lose the will to get back up and keep fighting the good fight. The world has gotten so cruel and for those of us who are vulnerable or sensitive it can seem almost unbearable.
appalachiablue
(41,103 posts)Ron Obvious
(6,261 posts)My mother died of a sudden heart attack a few months after my eldest sister was killed in an accident. I've always thought there was a relationship between the two events.
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)I have seen this time and time again, so I do think there is something to the fact that heartbreak can be deadly. I always wonder how the dismal economy can do that to people as well. Just make people give up hope until their health gives out I wonder if there have been any studies on it in the last few years.
Ron Obvious
(6,261 posts)It was a tough double blow at the time. I don't think my father had much joy in life in his remaining years either. These things go in chains.
He and I didn't see it at the time, but friends and neighbours later told us that they could see that my mother wasn't coping well and had lost the will to live.
Egnever
(21,506 posts)Long time couples dying within weeks of each other.
Alkene
(752 posts)I can totally relate.
