Broken Heart Can Be Unhealthy

    There’s more to the idea of a broken heart than just the mourning of a lost relationship. Severe physical or emotional stress, like the shock of discovering a spouse is cheating or wants a divorce, can cause a condition that mimics a heart attack.   
            
A 2004 study in the The New England Journal of Medicine dubbed this “broken heart syndrome,” also called stress cardiomyopathy.  
    
“It comes on after a body experiences acute emotional or physical stress,” said Dr. Ilan Wittstein, assistant professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the study’s lead author. “We have actually seen a couple of people who have developed this syndrome after finding out their spouse was unfaithful or confronting their spouse with divorce.”  
              
The study found that some people – 90 percent of whom were post-menopausal women – were coming to hospitals with symptoms that looked like a heart attack, including chest pain, shortness of breath, sweats, dizziness, low blood pressure and a heart that couldn’t pump effectively.    
       
But there are key differences between the two, Wittstein said.         
       
A heart attack usually involves a blocked artery or blood clot, cutting off blood to the heart and causing tissue death. With broken heart syndrome, there is no blockage and no permanent damage. The heart is simply “stunned.” Though the mechanism isn’t yet clear, Wittstein said adrenaline levels in people with broken heart syndrome are much higher than with heart attacks.  
 
“People have a terrible shock or terrible news and it results in a massive release of adrenaline,” he said. “All this adrenaline flooding your body binds to the heart.”    

The syndrome occurs minutes to hours after the emotional shock, and lasts about 48 to 72 hours. After that, the heart “wakes up.”  

While recovery time is much shorter than for heart attacks and there is no permanent damage, Wittstein said the initial period of heart weakening can be severe enough to endanger a person’s life.   
      
“It can be very serious,” he said. “Can you die of a broken heart? The answer is definitely yes with this syndrome.”     


Stephanie Obley has worked at newspapers in Florida covering issues from education to crime. She lives in South Carolina with her family and writes freelance articles. She can be reached at s.obley@divorce360.com.