Heart break - I've seen it happen to my family, friends, and favorite television soap opera characters one too many times, but who could have known that it was an actual medical condition?
In season 2 (episode 5), a woman is admitted to the hospital on the same day every year, for the past seven years, with symptoms of what appear to be a heart attack. But upon routine testing, all results obtained that would normally prove as evidence of a heart attack show up normal. So why was her body pointing so specifically to something that was not there?
After questioning the woman's husband, the doctor finds out that the first day his wife suffered a 'fake' heart attack was on the day the funeral home came to pick up the body of their deceased neighbor. Turns out the woman and her neighbor had been secretly in love for years (shocking, I know), and when he died she began some intense grieving. Every year on that day she remembers her lost love and the symptoms return.
This condition is referred to as Broken Heart Syndrome.
Broken Heart Syndrome - also called Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy - is a temporary condition which often arises during stressful situations.
When an individual experiences such immense stress, this stimulates the release of a surge of stress hormones - such as epinephrine and norepinephrine - into the bloodstream which cause a sudden increase in blood flow that 'stuns' the heart. A stunned heart refers to one where the muscles are temporarily injured.
The heart becomes so weakened that the left ventricle (which is responsible for pumping blood throughout the body) balloons/bulges out, preventing it from being able to pump blood efficiently. Meanwhile the rest of the heart muscle continues its normal function and pumps with regular forceful contractions. Thus the heart begins to pump blood inconsistently.
Similar to a heart attack, symptoms of Broken Heart Syndrome include sudden chest pain and shortness of breath...but why?
I'm sure many of us have heard the saying 'love is more addictive than any drug'; the reason behind this is directly related to what happens to people with Broken Heart Syndrome:
When individuals are in love, their hypothalamus reacts by secreting 'feel good hormones' such as dopamine (also known as prolactin-inhibiting hormone) and oxytocin that - as the name indicates - allow lovers to experience happiness and pleasure. However, when the person has their heart broken, the surge of all these intense emotions is cut short almost instantly.
Sort of like what happens during drug withdrawal, the body immediately goes into a state of stress, releasing the associated hormones. The sudden increase in blood pressure and heart rate causes way more blood than necessary to be supplied to the heart at once, and since the heart isn't pumping consistently, the individual experiences a squeezing sensation in their chest from their struggling heart.
Because of this inconsistent pumping, a lot of blood gets backed up into the lungs and left atrium. This in turn starves many body cells of needed oxygenated blood, thus causing shortness of breath. It could also result in an even more serious condition - a pulmonary edema - in which fluid gets backed up into the alveoli of the lungs.
The same happens to other individuals who have gone through extremely traumatic experiences.
So what makes the two conditions so different? Well, most heart attacks are caused by some blockage of a coronary artery (which reduces the amount of oxygen carried to heart cells), however in broken heart syndrome no arteries are blocked despite the reduced blood flow caused by stunning.
Although Broken Heart Syndrome can be fatal (if the coronary artery gets damaged), individuals are more likely to die of heart attacks. In most cases, however, Broken Heart Syndrome resolves itself over time and the cardiac muscle is able to recover.
So technically, time does mend a broken heart...as long as your coronary arteries don't spasm.
References
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Health/story?id=1950767
http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/broken-heart-syndrome/home/ovc-20264165
http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/More/Cardiomyopathy/Is-Broken-Heart-Syndrome-Real_UCM_448547_Article.jsp#.WLcWW28rLcs
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