Broken Heart Syndrome Happiness can also cause heart disease

The "broken heart" is not just an imaginary feeling. Rather, stress, grief and worry can actually mean strong physical effects. The so-called "broken heart syndrome" is similar to a heart attack with symptoms such as chest pain and tightness. Now, recent studies show that even beautiful experiences can lead to the heart "breaking". Experts currently report on this "happy heart syndrome" in the "European Heart Journal".

Symptoms similar to a heart attack
Since the early 1990s, the so-called "Broken Heart Syndrome" ("broken heart syndrome") is known as a disease in cardiology. The complaints referred to in the art as "stress cardiomyopathy" may be e.g. with heavy losses, lovesickness and mental stress occur and are associated with symptoms similar to an infarction: The heart cramps together, there are severe chest pain and a feeling of tightness. Trigger here is not a closed vein, but a narrowing of the coronary arteries due to the stress and thus a dysfunction of the heart muscle. "Affected are people who are suddenly in existential distress, for example because suddenly the whole basis of life is withdrawn," explains Jürgen Pache, chief physician of cardiology at the Schön Klinik Starnberger See, to the news agency "dpa".

In one third of the cases no cause can be determined
According to the expert, however, the syndrome can also occur after physical stress or in connection with very severe physical pain, which in turn causes mental stress. According to the information, no cause can be identified in one third of the cases. Broken-heart syndrome was initially found mainly in older women who had lost their husband. Japanese physicians were the first to describe the phenomenon, naming it "Takotsubo" because the shape of the left ventricle resembles that of octopus traps.

A broken heart through grief, sorrow and stress sounds obvious. But can luck also harm the heart? In order to answer this question, suitable data was missing so far. In 2011, two Swiss researchers from the University of Zurich set up a registry to document these cases. The evaluation showed that even moments of happiness such as the birth of a child or feeling in a victory could affect the heart and cause a so-called "Happy Heart Syndrome", said doctors and researchers in the "European Heart Journal". Thus, over the past five years, 25 clinics in nine countries have collected statistical data on 1750 Takotsubo cases. It turned out that in 485 cases emotional shocks were the reason for the syndrome - four percent of them, however, were happy events.

Left ventricle inflates excessively
As the researchers and physicians write about Jelena R. Ghadri1 and Annahita Sarcon, the disease, also known as "Takotsubo syndrome", is characterized by a sudden weakening of the heart muscles, resulting in excessive distension of the left ventricle. This leads to acute chest pain and shortness of breath, but can even cause a heart attack and thus even death, the experts continue. However, none of the cases that suffered Takotsubo's syndrome because of a happy experience were fatal.

In addition, it was found that most patients with a broken heart were women - regardless of whether a happy or unlucky event was the trigger. However, the reasons for this would not be known, the report said. Therefore, it is the task of future research to precisely describe the exact mechanisms that underlie the two heart variants of the Takotsubo syndrome (broken and happy heart), say the experts in the "European Heart Journal". (No)