Can you die of a broken heart?
It is the ultimate romantic tragedy – but can anyone really die of heartbreak? “Provisionally, yes,” says Bogomolovas, a biologist at UC San Diego Health in the United States. “Takotsubo syndrome is a sudden onset cardiomyopathy brought on by emotional stress. It’s quite severe, but the mechanism is unknown.” Also known as ‘broken heart syndrome’, this condition causes a sudden weakening of the heart muscle, preventing it from pumping blood effectively. It can be brought on by more than grief: in 2019, doctors at the Soroka University Medical Center in Israel reported the case of a 60-year-old woman who suffered an attack at a wedding after swallowing a large amount of wasabi paste, mistaking it for guacamole. As project coordinator of the EU-funded Titin Signals project, Bogomolovas investigated how stress damages heart tissue. Rather than heartbreak, his team focused on chronic stress, “quite a significant contributor to hypertension, the main driver of heart problems,” he adds. Left unchecked, damage from hypertension can lead to heart failure. A serious threat to health worldwide, heart failure has much lower survival rates than cancer. Only around half of those diagnosed survive a further 5 years. “Medicine brings people over the hump, but now they have damaged hearts,” says Bogomolovas. Although many adaptive treatments exist to reduce blood pressure and prevent clots, there are almost none that directly target the heart muscle for repair. As a Marie Skłodowska-Curie research fellow, Bogomolovas studied the role of a giant springy molecule known as titin, which accumulates in the heart tissue during mechanical or toxic stress. “We don’t know why it does this – if we did, it could be useful for therapies that target heart muscles,” he explains. In the meantime, prevention is better than cure when it comes to taking care of your heart. Lifestyle modifications such as a healthy diet, regular exercise, and not confusing wasabi for guacamole can all help keep you out of the emergency room. Strong social ties have also been shown to improve our well-being, so being generous with your love – even if it means the occasional break-up – is bound to do your heart good. And if the worst does happen, don’t despair. Unlike a heart attack brought on by chronic stress and damage to the heart tissue, Bogomolovas says the symptoms of broken-heart syndrome dissipate after 24 hours with proper medical attention. Getting over your ex, however, might take a little longer. Click here to find out more about Julius Bogomolovas' research: Molecular insight into heart failure.
Keywords
Heart, failure, stress, chronic, broken, Takotsubo, syndrome, wasabi
