Society has mentioned before that a broken heart could kill you. If you love someone so much and invest so much of your time and effort into a relationship and then that relationship ends or your significant other dies, it is completely crushing. Certainly, sadness takes over your body post breakup but could it really have health affects? In the past, my friends and I have just taken to a container of ice cream and a sad rom-com movie or a comedy.
After looking into this, scientists and researchers have discovered “Broken Heart Syndrome”.
This is most frequently caused by the death of a loved one. Researchers from the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center have discovered that in the first 24 hours after losing a loved one, the person who is suffering from the loss is 21 times more likely to suffer from a heart attack. In the week following the loss a person is still 8 times more likely and the risk continues to stay higher for at least a month.
Researchers interviewed 2,000 patients who had suffered from cardiac episodes. The researchers inquired if anything/what had triggered these events. The results of the study were published in the journal, Circulation. This would fall under the category of an observational study.
There have also been studies conducted by Japanese researchers in 1991 as well as research from the Minneapolis Heart Institute.
Researchers have also associated depression, anxiety and anger with the increased risk because the feelings generally lead to increased blood pressure rates.
“Broken Heart Syndrome” is clinically referred to as stress-induced cardiomyopathy or takostsubo cardiomyopathy.
This type of strain on the heart does not just happen post death of a loved one however; it can be triggered by an emotionally stressful event such as a divorce, romantic rejection or could even happen following something good like winning the lottery.
It has also been noted that “broken heart syndrome” is different from a heart attack. With “broken heart syndrome” there are usually no warning signs that can be seen in blood tests or EKGs.
If I have learned anything after reading these articles and discovering that a broken heart could potentially kill you, it is that I am definitely glad that I have not suffered a break up this traumatic.
Works Cited:
http://www.yourtango.com/2012128420/heartbreak-real-says-new-research
http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/More/Cardiomyopathy/Is-Broken-Heart-Syndrome-Real_UCM_448547_Article.jsp#
http://www.medicaldaily.com/broken-hearts-can-be-matter-life-and-death-real-dangers-heartbreak-325888
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25660245
I truly do believe it is possible to die from a broken heart, however I believe that dying from a broken heart is limited to when the person you’ve spent the majority of your life with passes, and so does your reason for living. As seen in movies such as “The Notebook”, it actually isn’t uncommon for couples to pass within weeks, days or even hours of each other. It is important to remember that the mind and heart are the more powerful than any other force. While this is all mostly my opinion, there are many instances where couples do pass right after the other. Most recently, famous football player Doug Flutie said goodbye to both his parents. His father suffered a heart attack, and less than an hours later, Flutie’s mother passed from a heart attack as well. Read more about the story here. This also explains how there is a recorded increase in death after a spouse passes. I think it would be interesting to expand on the science behind this idea– how the brain and the heart work together and if there is any plausible explanation for this.
Really great article, I enjoyed this one!
This essay let me remind two years ago what actually happened to me personally. I was in relationship with my first girlfirend and them she broke up with me. I was pretty sad in those days, and I drank lots of alcohol during that time (I was in China), and finally my stomach was hurt and I felt so painful for the next few weeks. And this topic really tell us that a broken heart can kill someone. Also during the sad time people are easy to do something really stupid like smoking weed, drinking alcohol and even eating illegal pills, because people are hard to control themselves during the sad period.
There is another example that can support this topic. There was a farmer who was selling the watermelon in the street of China. Unfortunately, he got 200 yuan counterfeit money and he was sad to dead.
As much as we like to ignore it or pretend that our bodies are stronger than our emotions, they are very much reflected through our physical selves. For example, it is well known that stress leads to hair loss and balding. However, emotional trauma can take a much more serious toll. Heart attacks can be triggered by the death of a loved one, or even by winning the lottery (it’s exciting, we know). Even dramatic break up can strain the heart tendons. This ironically leads to the idea that a “broken heart” can lead to an actual broken heart, even though emotions are centered around a certain part of the brain. Keep in mind, though, that the brain control the actions of the entire body. This site proves that broken heart syndrome is real.
http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/More/Cardiomyopathy/Is-Broken-Heart-Syndrome-Real_UCM_448547_Article.jsp#.VmETrXarQS8
This article really got to me. I experienced a lot of deaths in my family early in my life when I was young. I haven’t experienced a death recently, but adding the fact that I miss my parents and pets so much when I’m here at college, I seriously hope it doesn’t happen to me when it’s there time to go. However, I don’t believe a broken heart is an appropriate cause for death. I find it hard to believe the sadness and grief of a loved one can potentially take your life. That was until I found this.http://metro.co.uk/2015/11/24/you-can-actually-die-from-a-broken-heart-says-science-5522253/
Essentially, the experiment proved that the effect of a spouse dying cause the chance of the other will follow to increase.
This is a very interesting topic! I don’t know much about heart breaks but I was always curious if emotional pain can be dangerous for your health. Here you can read an article I found about chest pain caused by feelings.
wow crazy to think that there are heart effect due to a broken heart. But with all the evidence you brought about, I noticed how you failed to mention any cases that prove this is true. So with that said is any of this really facts or just a myth? I understand the correlation between a broken heart and emotional stress but that really cause heart problems or even death? This are questions that could be posed because of this topic. Good blog post though!