Yes, A Broken Heart Can Kill You

Part of what shapes us into the people we become is the hurt we sometimes get from people whom we love and care about or from a relationship we never thought would end. By the time we all become adults, a lot of things would have happened to us, things that contribute to moulding us into the individuals we become. Those things range from the society, school, knowledge and a broken heart. Yes, a broken heart. By the time an individual clocks twenty-one, he or she would have gone through his/her first heartbreak by then. Could be watching his first love become someone else’s first girlfriend or the boy she secretly loves asking the most popular girl out in school. Whatever the case may be, a broken heart is a part of life. Broken heart over the years has been seen as normal (well it usually is) what is however not seen as normal or not widely known is that when you get your heart broken, you might actually die from it. Some Japanese experts in the early 1990s discovered that a broken heart has some symptoms that are similar to having a heart attack. Yes, that serious. What they also discovered is that there is actually something called broken heart syndrome, the name for sudden heart failure that comes on after emotional trauma. These Japanese doctors who discovered it, named it takotsubo cardiomyopathy after noting a resemblance between a Japanese octopus trap, a takotsubo, and the shape of the affected heart on X-ray. The good news about this is that it is very rare. It is spotted in post-menopausal women. And while the symptoms are similar to heart attack, one to two percent of people who have heart attack are actually suffering from the broken heart syndrome. What happens to the heart in both cases are however different. During a heart attack, the heart muscle is cut off from its supply of oxygen, either from a blockage or a spasm in one of the arteries that supplies blood. Broken heart syndrome, on the other hand, is thought to stem from a surge of hormones that impairs the ability of the heart muscle to pump. Why this syndrome is more common in middle aged women is still not exactly clear but maybe something that has got to do with hormones. To avoid the broken heart syndrome, stay away from things that cause sudden excitement and things that can cause emotional pain in the future like falling in love. But what type of life is that huh? An absolutely dull one you’d agree!