by David DiSalvo, Contributor
Pharma & Healthcare |10/03/2012 @ 2:43PM
More die of heartbreak than anything else. Yet, there are no mass movements against heartbreak or demonstrations in the streets.–Saul Bellow
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the publication of Saul Bellow’s great novel, More Die of Heartbreak. As it turns out, Bellow’s quote above from the book–one of the last novels he penned before his own death–isn’t only poetically elegant, but also to a certain extent scientifically accurate.
The first study to investigate the question of whether people can actually die of heartbreak was published in the British Medical Journal in 1969. Participants consisted of 4,500 widowers, 55 years or older, tracked over the span of nine years. Researchers found that the risk of dying in the first six months after losing a spouse was 40% higher than average. (Source:Scienceline.org)
More recent studies, including a few especially compelling ones conducted at Johns Hopkins University and published in the New England Journal of Medicine, have confirmed the findings: a person’s risk of death from heart attack significantly increases following a loved one’s death. In one study, researchers tracked 1.5 million people aged between 35 and 84, and found that, in the six months after losing a spouse, the risk of dying from a heart attack increased by 20 to 35%.
The linkage between heartbreak and death appears to hinge on a flood of stress hormones, including adrenaline, GH and cortisol. During one of the Johns Hopkins studies on what was dubbed ‘Broken Heart Syndrome’ (aka acute stress cardiomyopathy), patients with no history of heart disease showed signs of imminent heart failure but without the traditional symptoms of heart attack. The one commonality between them was that they’d all received bad or unexpected news just prior to being admitted to the hospital. Blood tests showed that their levels of stress hormones were several times higher than normal, and doctors determined that the hormonal deluge was handicapping their hearts’ ability to pump.
But there’s also a behavioral side to this. Recent studies have found that after the loss of a loved one, the risk of dying from an accident, violence or drug and alcohol-related event drastically increases as well. In these cases, emotion triggers risky behavior leading to one’s demise. Heartbreak in this sense is an indirect cause of death, and it’s much higher for men than women.
Even if heartbreak doesn’t kill you (and in all likelihood it won’t), it can predispose you to a buffet of other issues. Too-high stress hormone levels are directly linked to gastrointestinal problems, lowered immune response, anxiety disorders and depression. People who have experienced the loss of a loved one or are coming off a break-up are more likely to get a cold, flu and pneumonia. And as everyone who has ever experienced a failed relationship knows, getting back to feeling like “you†takes some time.
Ending on a positive note, the realty is that even after the loss of a loved one, whether by death or break-up, the odds of recovery are in your favor. Fortunately, we’re resilient beasts, which is a good thing because we’re also gluttons for emotional punishment. Such is irrationality of love.
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Topic: More Die of Heartbreak, More Often Than You Might Think (Read 768 times)