June 10, 2022 • 13 mins
Yes, it is possible to die of a broken heart—and the stress of current events has made that more likely than ever. Dr. Saltz talks about the intimate mind-body connection behind Broken Heart Syndrome, and what we can do to help ease the pain.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
These are challenging times, but you don't have to navigate
them alone. Welcome to How Can I Help? I'm Dr
Gail Salt. I'm a clinical Associate Professor of psychiatry at
the New York Presbyterian Hospital, a psychoanalyst, and best selling author,
and I'm here every week to answer your most pressing questions,
(00:26):
hopefully with understanding, insight and advice. Can you die of
a broken heart? Medical research suggests indeed you can, and
the likelihood of this as unfortunately increased during the COVID
nineteen pandemic. The husband of Irma Garcia, one of the
(00:49):
two teachers killed in the mass shooting at rob Elementary
School in Uvaldi, Texas, died suddenly before the funeral. The
scenario is sadly typical goal for death from a broken heart,
a sudden loss of a beloved spouse. Today, I'm answering
a question from the adult child of a bereaved partner
(01:10):
with concerns about their remaining parents. Even before COVID nineteen's
arrival in early led to a national shutdown, the medical
condition called taco subu cardiomyopathy, also known as broken heart syndrome,
was on the rise in cases of broken heart syndrome,
(01:31):
the heart's main pumping chamber temporarily enlarges and therefore pumps
poorly with weak strength. As a result, the patient experiences
chest pain and shortness of breath, and those symptoms can
feel like you're having a heart attack. Physiologically, however, it's
(01:53):
not a heart attack. The heart muscle suddenly becomes weakened
in the setting of severe stress. The type of stress
that leads to broken heart syndrome can be emotional, like
the death of a loved one, or from fear like
having a car accident or being the victim of a crime.
(02:14):
Or it can be physical, like having a stroke or
a severe infection, or even from extreme physical exercise like
running a half marathon. Think about the heart as a
pump that has to pump blood to the rest of
the body. If the heart muscle suddenly weakens, basically a
(02:37):
situation is created where the blood isn't able to be
pumped all the way to the vital organs, and therefore
the person can die. Broken heart syndrome is not a
heart attack. One difference being these patients typically do not
have blockages in their arteries of their heart, which is
(02:58):
some of the reason that they might not be picked
up earlier, as being at risk for broken heart syndrome
and blocked arteries are what does put you at risk
of heart attacks, but people who see doctors regularly may
have those blockages picked up before a heart attack. The
truth is, without an autopsy, it's actually impossible to know
(03:20):
whether the person who has died died of a heart attack,
died of broken heart syndrome, or even from another type
of trauma or stressed induced heart problem. Broken heart syndrome
is a classic example of how mental health is health.
That the mind and the body are intimately connected, and
(03:42):
that things which have extreme emotional impact on us causes
physiological changes to the body as well. Chemicals, hormones, and
proteins that are produced in the body during very stressful
times can be the instigator it causes change to the
cardiovascular system. The rates of a broken heart syndrome have
(04:06):
increased in recent years, according to a study from Dr
Susan Chang, a cardiologist and epidemiologist and director of the
Institute for Research on Healthy Aging in the Department of
Cardiology at the Smith Heart Institute at Cedars Sinai Medical
Center in Los Angeles. Dr Chang performed a study which
was published in one in the Journal of the American
(04:29):
Heart Association, which found increased rates of broken heart syndrome
from two thousand and six to two thousand and seventeen.
More than a hundred and thirty five thousand, five hundred
Americans had the syndrome during that time, and women aged
fifty to seventy four had the highest increase over those years.
(04:51):
Even though women are more likely to actually have broken
heart syndrome, research has found that when men get broken
heart syndrome, they are actually at a higher risk of
dying from it. Dr Chang's ongoing research suggests broken heart
syndrome and stress related heart disease, and traditional heart attacks
have all risen during the pandemic. More patients with only
(05:16):
a few or no heart risk factors, those risk factors being,
for example, smoking, diabetes, by blood pressure, by cholesterol, or
living a sedentary life are having heart events too, and
the stress from the pandemic is among the big culprits
that she has found. When before you needed only a
(05:37):
little bit of stress on top of a lot of
pre existing risk factors to trigger a heart attack, now
you don't even need that much in terms of pre
existing risks because there's so much stress. Dr Chang has
said She's also said, we have a new baseline of
stress that we're all living with now, and when you
pile on top an incredibly profound, tragic event as what
(06:01):
took place in Texas at the raw elementary school, that
just completely overwhelms the system. Also, respiratory problems bought on
by COVID nineteen infection could increase the rate of broken
heart syndrome. Too. Many doctors are finding that the pandemic
has sort of led to this spike in cases from
(06:23):
different angles, both the emotional side and the physical side.
So with that, right after the break, we'll get to
my listeners question. Welcome back. Let's get to my listeners
(06:49):
question and see how can I help, dear Doctor Souls.
My father died about two weeks ago. He was eight two.
My parents have been married since my mother is twenty two,
for sixty years, and he really was her everything. I
(07:09):
am very sad and struggling with my own grief, But
in addition, I'm really worried about my mom. She had
been in fine health for an eighty two year old woman,
but she is so crushed and lost now and is
barely eating or sleeping or doing anything. She sort of
stares at the wall and occasionally cries. And I'm really
(07:32):
worried that she might die from the loss of my dad.
What can I do? First, let me say I am
so very sorry for your loss. No matter how old
you are, it's always incredibly sad and difficult to lose
your parents. I also understand your worry. First of all,
(07:54):
you have never seen your mother operate without your father
as a partner, so the whole concept is really foreign
to you. Second of all, grief can look just terrible,
and in many cases, to be truthful, it feels it.
But grief is a part of loss, and the loss
(08:14):
of a partner of sixty years is a major loss.
In other words, your mother has to grieve now. Grief
cannot be treated as in made to go away. But
if grief becomes so impairing that a person cannot eat
or sleep and be functional, and this goes on for
(08:37):
a period of time, then this is complicated grief, and
that partially is really depression, and depression can be treated.
The other issue is that with initial horrendous grief is
that it stresses the body by stressing the mind. Sustaining
(09:01):
very high stress for a period of time can impact
the cardiovascular system, and this is what can lead to
sudden death via broken heart syndrome. If your mom is
so distraught that she cannot even have moments of relief,
it would be wise to take her for a check
in with her doctor to check her blood pressure and
(09:24):
her pulse and have a general check up and listen
to her heart. And if she is truly not eating
and sleeping, then on top of that, an antidepressant may
be needed to lift her mood enough to ameliorate these symptoms.
But in the meanwhile, being able to talk to her
(09:44):
about loss and help her fine comfort in thinking about
the wonderful memories of your dad could really help her too,
whether that is with you or with friends of hers,
or with an individual therapist or even and this can
really be helpful with a support group of women who
(10:05):
have also lost their partners. Being able to share feelings
with other people you know can really understand how you
feel does help in the processing of grief. Understand that
your mom may be in and out of this state
for the better part of the year, with more difficulty
(10:26):
around holidays and anniversaries that matter to them. The things
that I've mentioned already are the types of things that you,
as her loving daughter, can think about and do. But
sometimes a spouse simply does not want, in the depths
of their being, to go on without the other, and
(10:48):
you may not be able to control that. No matter
what you do or feel. You may have to accept
her conscious or unconscious decisions about participating in life that
feels fully miserable without him. You can try to talk
to her about medication that could really treat the depths
(11:10):
of despair and help her feel a little better, but
you cannot force her to, nor should you, and nor
should you feel guilty if she is unable to carry
on without him. She and you have actually been very
lucky to have benefited from a lifelong love. I hope
(11:32):
that was helpful. If a person survives the onset of
broken heart syndrome, they can often recover within days or weeks,
but the long term effects of the syndrome remain unknown
and they are currently being studied. Some research has suggested
people who have had broken heart syndrome have a higher
(11:54):
risk for future art events. What you can do is
build up hoping tools to help yourself decrease your day
to day stress levels. This is really true for everyone.
Aerobic exercise, deep breathing, meditation, talking to others. By decreasing
(12:16):
our day to day stress levels, it means that when
a big stress hits, we have some reserve to absorb it.
Some people may want brief counseling when they have a loss,
which can be provided even by employers or community organizations,
or even individual therapy activities like yoga, the practice of mindfulness,
(12:40):
other types of exercise and meditation can all help relieve stress.
There is no actual medication for stress, and the times
they do keep seeming more stressful for a lot of people.
So now is the time to think about ways to
decrease life stress for you and your family. We cannot
(13:02):
stop unexpected tragedies from happening, but we can be physiologically
and mentally better prepared to weatheringon. Do you have a
problem I can help with? If so, email me yet?
How can I help? At Seneca women dot Com, all
centers remain anonymous and listen every Friday too. How can
(13:25):
I help with me? Doctor Gale's Salts
These are challenging times, but you don't have to navigate
them alone. Welcome to How Can I Help? I'm Dr
Gail Salt. I'm a clinical Associate Professor of psychiatry at
the New York Presbyterian Hospital, a psychoanalyst, and best selling author,
and I'm here every week to answer your most pressing questions,
(00:26):
hopefully with understanding, insight and advice. Can you die of
a broken heart? Medical research suggests indeed you can, and
the likelihood of this as unfortunately increased during the COVID
nineteen pandemic. The husband of Irma Garcia, one of the
(00:49):
two teachers killed in the mass shooting at rob Elementary
School in Uvaldi, Texas, died suddenly before the funeral. The
scenario is sadly typical goal for death from a broken heart,
a sudden loss of a beloved spouse. Today, I'm answering
a question from the adult child of a bereaved partner
(01:10):
with concerns about their remaining parents. Even before COVID nineteen's
arrival in early led to a national shutdown, the medical
condition called taco subu cardiomyopathy, also known as broken heart syndrome,
was on the rise in cases of broken heart syndrome,
(01:31):
the heart's main pumping chamber temporarily enlarges and therefore pumps
poorly with weak strength. As a result, the patient experiences
chest pain and shortness of breath, and those symptoms can
feel like you're having a heart attack. Physiologically, however, it's
(01:53):
not a heart attack. The heart muscle suddenly becomes weakened
in the setting of severe stress. The type of stress
that leads to broken heart syndrome can be emotional, like
the death of a loved one, or from fear like
having a car accident or being the victim of a crime.
(02:14):
Or it can be physical, like having a stroke or
a severe infection, or even from extreme physical exercise like
running a half marathon. Think about the heart as a
pump that has to pump blood to the rest of
the body. If the heart muscle suddenly weakens, basically a
(02:37):
situation is created where the blood isn't able to be
pumped all the way to the vital organs, and therefore
the person can die. Broken heart syndrome is not a
heart attack. One difference being these patients typically do not
have blockages in their arteries of their heart, which is
(02:58):
some of the reason that they might not be picked
up earlier, as being at risk for broken heart syndrome
and blocked arteries are what does put you at risk
of heart attacks, but people who see doctors regularly may
have those blockages picked up before a heart attack. The
truth is, without an autopsy, it's actually impossible to know
(03:20):
whether the person who has died died of a heart attack,
died of broken heart syndrome, or even from another type
of trauma or stressed induced heart problem. Broken heart syndrome
is a classic example of how mental health is health.
That the mind and the body are intimately connected, and
(03:42):
that things which have extreme emotional impact on us causes
physiological changes to the body as well. Chemicals, hormones, and
proteins that are produced in the body during very stressful
times can be the instigator it causes change to the
cardiovascular system. The rates of a broken heart syndrome have
(04:06):
increased in recent years, according to a study from Dr
Susan Chang, a cardiologist and epidemiologist and director of the
Institute for Research on Healthy Aging in the Department of
Cardiology at the Smith Heart Institute at Cedars Sinai Medical
Center in Los Angeles. Dr Chang performed a study which
was published in one in the Journal of the American
(04:29):
Heart Association, which found increased rates of broken heart syndrome
from two thousand and six to two thousand and seventeen.
More than a hundred and thirty five thousand, five hundred
Americans had the syndrome during that time, and women aged
fifty to seventy four had the highest increase over those years.
(04:51):
Even though women are more likely to actually have broken
heart syndrome, research has found that when men get broken
heart syndrome, they are actually at a higher risk of
dying from it. Dr Chang's ongoing research suggests broken heart
syndrome and stress related heart disease, and traditional heart attacks
have all risen during the pandemic. More patients with only
(05:16):
a few or no heart risk factors, those risk factors being,
for example, smoking, diabetes, by blood pressure, by cholesterol, or
living a sedentary life are having heart events too, and
the stress from the pandemic is among the big culprits
that she has found. When before you needed only a
(05:37):
little bit of stress on top of a lot of
pre existing risk factors to trigger a heart attack, now
you don't even need that much in terms of pre
existing risks because there's so much stress. Dr Chang has
said She's also said, we have a new baseline of
stress that we're all living with now, and when you
pile on top an incredibly profound, tragic event as what
(06:01):
took place in Texas at the raw elementary school, that
just completely overwhelms the system. Also, respiratory problems bought on
by COVID nineteen infection could increase the rate of broken
heart syndrome. Too. Many doctors are finding that the pandemic
has sort of led to this spike in cases from
(06:23):
different angles, both the emotional side and the physical side.
So with that, right after the break, we'll get to
my listeners question. Welcome back. Let's get to my listeners
(06:49):
question and see how can I help, dear Doctor Souls.
My father died about two weeks ago. He was eight two.
My parents have been married since my mother is twenty two,
for sixty years, and he really was her everything. I
(07:09):
am very sad and struggling with my own grief, But
in addition, I'm really worried about my mom. She had
been in fine health for an eighty two year old woman,
but she is so crushed and lost now and is
barely eating or sleeping or doing anything. She sort of
stares at the wall and occasionally cries. And I'm really
(07:32):
worried that she might die from the loss of my dad.
What can I do? First, let me say I am
so very sorry for your loss. No matter how old
you are, it's always incredibly sad and difficult to lose
your parents. I also understand your worry. First of all,
(07:54):
you have never seen your mother operate without your father
as a partner, so the whole concept is really foreign
to you. Second of all, grief can look just terrible,
and in many cases, to be truthful, it feels it.
But grief is a part of loss, and the loss
(08:14):
of a partner of sixty years is a major loss.
In other words, your mother has to grieve now. Grief
cannot be treated as in made to go away. But
if grief becomes so impairing that a person cannot eat
or sleep and be functional, and this goes on for
(08:37):
a period of time, then this is complicated grief, and
that partially is really depression, and depression can be treated.
The other issue is that with initial horrendous grief is
that it stresses the body by stressing the mind. Sustaining
(09:01):
very high stress for a period of time can impact
the cardiovascular system, and this is what can lead to
sudden death via broken heart syndrome. If your mom is
so distraught that she cannot even have moments of relief,
it would be wise to take her for a check
in with her doctor to check her blood pressure and
(09:24):
her pulse and have a general check up and listen
to her heart. And if she is truly not eating
and sleeping, then on top of that, an antidepressant may
be needed to lift her mood enough to ameliorate these symptoms.
But in the meanwhile, being able to talk to her
(09:44):
about loss and help her fine comfort in thinking about
the wonderful memories of your dad could really help her too,
whether that is with you or with friends of hers,
or with an individual therapist or even and this can
really be helpful with a support group of women who
(10:05):
have also lost their partners. Being able to share feelings
with other people you know can really understand how you
feel does help in the processing of grief. Understand that
your mom may be in and out of this state
for the better part of the year, with more difficulty
(10:26):
around holidays and anniversaries that matter to them. The things
that I've mentioned already are the types of things that you,
as her loving daughter, can think about and do. But
sometimes a spouse simply does not want, in the depths
of their being, to go on without the other, and
(10:48):
you may not be able to control that. No matter
what you do or feel. You may have to accept
her conscious or unconscious decisions about participating in life that
feels fully miserable without him. You can try to talk
to her about medication that could really treat the depths
(11:10):
of despair and help her feel a little better, but
you cannot force her to, nor should you, and nor
should you feel guilty if she is unable to carry
on without him. She and you have actually been very
lucky to have benefited from a lifelong love. I hope
(11:32):
that was helpful. If a person survives the onset of
broken heart syndrome, they can often recover within days or weeks,
but the long term effects of the syndrome remain unknown
and they are currently being studied. Some research has suggested
people who have had broken heart syndrome have a higher
(11:54):
risk for future art events. What you can do is
build up hoping tools to help yourself decrease your day
to day stress levels. This is really true for everyone.
Aerobic exercise, deep breathing, meditation, talking to others. By decreasing
(12:16):
our day to day stress levels, it means that when
a big stress hits, we have some reserve to absorb it.
Some people may want brief counseling when they have a loss,
which can be provided even by employers or community organizations,
or even individual therapy activities like yoga, the practice of mindfulness,
(12:40):
other types of exercise and meditation can all help relieve stress.
There is no actual medication for stress, and the times
they do keep seeming more stressful for a lot of people.
So now is the time to think about ways to
decrease life stress for you and your family. We cannot
(13:02):
stop unexpected tragedies from happening, but we can be physiologically
and mentally better prepared to weatheringon. Do you have a
problem I can help with? If so, email me yet?
How can I help? At Seneca women dot Com, all
centers remain anonymous and listen every Friday too. How can
(13:25):
I help with me? Doctor Gale's Salts
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