Can you really die from a broken heart?

Dilated heart

Can losing a loved one or something really stressful really harm your health? Studies have shown that loss and grief can lead to changes in blood pressure and heart rate control, and blood clotting. Broken Heart syndrome or also called Acute Stress cardiomyopathy or Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy can happen even if you’re healthy. The big question is can you really die from a broken heart? The answer is yes but that rarely happens.  In this blog I will talk about what broken heart syndrome is, some studies they have done with it, and lastly what are scientists doing today with it/treating it.

Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy “broken heart syndrome” is a temporary condition wear your heart muscle becomes suddenly weakened or “stunned”.  Broken heart syndrome may be misdiagnosed as a heart attack because the symptoms and test results are similar. Unlike a heart attack there is no evidence of blocked arteries in broken heart syndrome. During broken heart syndrome a part of your heart enlarges and doesn’t pump well while the rest of your heart works fine. Broken heart syndrome can lead to severe short term muscle damage, although that is usually treatable (American Heart Association). Most people that get it recover in a few weeks, if they got help right away and rarely get it again. Death is possible especially if you have congestive heart failure or heart rhythm abnormalities (John Hopkins Medicine).

One study that was done was with Mayo Clinic and they did a study that found out that severe emotional stress is not as bad as physical stress.  People experiencing physical stress had a worse survival rate. This may help physicians because now they have recognized there is a condition that mimics a heart attack and later it was nicknamed broken heart syndrome. They did another study which found a possible reason for the disorder. They analyzed patients’ heart flow and found that two-thirds of the patients with broken heart syndrome had abnormal heart- blood flow which may be from small dysfunctional blood vessels. These studies may help improve the diagnosis and treat broken heart syndrome (MNT).

Researchers are just starting to figure out the causes, and how to diagnose/ treat broken heart syndrome.  If you are experiencing symptoms like chest pressure and tightness, shortness of breath, pain in the arm or back you are probably either having a heart attack or Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy. Since it’s very hard to tell them apart from the symptoms doctors often think it’s a heart attack until they do tests and ask you questions on your background.  If you were recently doing a lot of physical activity it is possible you are having a heart attack. But if you tell them your background and said you recently lost a loved so you have gone through a lot of stress lately it is possible you have Takotusubo Cardiomyopathy. Once they do tests if you don’t have any blocked arteries then you can rule out a heart attack (SCAI.org).What they are doing today for broken heart syndrome is medical treatment to aid the recovery of the heart. Doctors would treat it like a heart attack so aspirin and other heart drugs seem to help.

From the information on what broken heart syndrome is, studies they have done with it, and what scientists are doing today with it/treating it you can see that broken heart syndrome is a real disease and you can possibly die from it if not treated right away.  Otherwise it is normally not a life threatening thing.

  • Do you believe you can die from a broken heart?
  • Has anyone close to you experience this? If so was it thought to be a heart attack?
  • What are some more things they are doing to treat it?

3 thoughts on “Can you really die from a broken heart?

  1. Yes I do believe you can die from heart attacks. It is not very rare but it sounds so terrible to think about someone going through that much pain that they die. https://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/More/Cardiomyopathy/Is-Broken-Heart-Syndrome-Real_UCM_448547_Article.jsp
    On this website I found, as you stated in your blog, that you can also suffer from short-term heart muscle failure. “broken heart” are usually treatable and the patients that go through it and most people make a full recovery. I enjoyed this blog and I feel like it gave me a lot of information about this disease.

  2. I thought this was a very interesting blog, but I’ve never actually heard of someone with the broken heart syndrome. In movies it is seen very often though. I found a page from Mayo Clinic also explaining the disease which was http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/broken-heart-syndrome/basics/definition/con-20034635.
    I also thought it was very unique that this disease is only temporary, meaning it sometimes only last a week or two. I think that you could die from broken heart syndrome if it was very severe, and it probably could be very harmful depending on how severe your stress is. No one that I know have experienced this and I’m relieved by that because it seems this could be very harmful if it occurred. I think this was a very interesting blog and it had a lot of different facts and ideas about broken heart syndrome.

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