Scientists say it’s totally possible to die from a broken heart

By Danny Halpin via SWNS

Heart failure patients are more likely to die in the week after the death of a loved one, according to new research.

The study suggests that dying of a broken heart is not just a work of fiction, but a very real phenomenon.

Researchers found that grief-stricken heart failure (HF) patients are more likely to die after the death of a close family member - especially in the first week - as increased stress levels add more pressure on the heart.

More than 64 million people worldwide suffer from heart failure.

There have been many studies confirming the link between severe emotional stress and Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, or broken heart syndrome.

But the latest one, published in JACC: Heart Failure, is the first to investigate how bereavement affects HF risk.

Doctoral student Hua Chen of the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, and the lead author of the study said: “The association between bereavement and mortality was not only observed in cases of loss due to cardiovascular disease and other natural causes but also in cases of unnatural deaths.

“Our finding that bereavement was associated with mortality in HF patients contributes to and extends the existing literature regarding the role of stress in the prognosis of HF and is consistent with studies reporting associations between bereavement and increased risk of incident cardiovascular conditions.”

In the study, the authors analyzed whether HF risk was affected by relationship to the deceased, cause of death, or time passed since death.

They looked at almost 500,000 patients from the Swedish Heart Failure Registry during 2000-2018 and/or patients with a primary diagnosis of HF from the Swedish Patient Register during 1987-2018.

Information on date and cause of family member deaths (children, spouse/partner, grandchildren, siblings and parents) was obtained from the Cause of Death Register.

Of those patients, 58,949 experienced bereavement during a mean average of 3.7 years after their diagnosis.

Those who had lost a child had their risk of death increased by 10 percent.

The loss of a spouse or partner caused a 20 percent increase, grandchild five percent and a sibling 13 percent. There was no increased risk after the death of a parent.

The risk of dying from HF after the loss of any family member was highest during the first week of bereavement (78% increased risk), particularly in the case of death of a child (31% increased risk) or spouse/partner (113% increased risk).

It was also higher in the case of two losses (35% increased risk) as opposed to one loss (28% increased risk).

The study authors said bereavement may activate the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, which is an important neuroendocrine system that regulates stress and emotions by releasing hormones.

It may also trigger a reaction in the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system and the sympathetic nervous system, otherwise known as the fight-or-flight system which flushes the body with hormones and makes the heart work harder by sending more blood to the muscles.

Dr. Krisztina László, also from the Karolinska Institutet and senior author of the study, said: “The findings of the study may call for increased attention from family members, friends and involved professionals for bereaved heart failure patients, particularly in the period shortly after the loss.”

The study has several limitations, however, as the authors were unable to disentangle bereavement from other factors such as genes, socioeconomic position or other health issues.

They also said that the findings may only be generalized to countries with social and cultural contexts and health-related factors similar to Sweden and that further studies are needed to investigate whether less severe sources of stress may also contribute to the risk of death from HF.