What is the broken heart syndrome?
updated the 18 January 2016 à 12:55Broken heart syndrome is an acute heart condition that most often affects postmenopausal women after a romantic separation.
The growing number of separations among couples and the consequences that entails (moves, fights, shared custodies, loneliness …) “are often accompanied by a decline in living standards and a potentially harmful acute stress to women’s health“, warns the French Cardiology Federation in a statement. The emotional shocks associated with severe fatigue indeed favour a condition called cardiomyopathy stress, more known as the broken heart syndrome. Far from being psychological, this acute disease of the heart muscle is almost as dangerous as myocardial.
WHAT IS A BROKEN HEART?
According to a Swiss study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the mortality rate of broken heart syndrome is 3.7%. A figure that is close to that of death after a heart attack linked to myocardial infarction. Yet the mechanism is very different, since broken heart syndrome is not caused by a blocked artery. A portion of the heart is paralyzed as a result of a massive release of stress hormones. This blockage can lead to ventricular disorders, acute heart failure or the formation of clots. “The symptoms can evoke a heart attack: sudden shortness of breath, sudden chest pain, arrhythmia, loss of consciousness, vagal malaise,” said Professor Claire Mounier-Vehier, President of the French Federation of Cardiology. Postmenopausal women are the first victims because their arteries are particularly sensitive to the effects of stress, if spasment more easily and that estrogen receptors appear to play a role in the onset of the disease. The French Federation of Cardiology recalls that “this syndrome requires early diagnosis to avoid serious repercussions for the heart and to allow for appropriate treatment.”
Maureen Diament
