fromJuliane Gutmann
conclude
Stress can trigger heart attack-like symptoms: How do you recognize broken heart syndrome and what causes are possible.
The corona pandemic has demanded more from some and less from others. Anyone who has a systemically relevant job and enjoys spending time at home is one of the latter. But for many people, the Corona period meant one thing above all: stress. If the job has broken down and the livelihood has been taken away, this not only has effects on the psyche: You can even show tremendous concern physically – with complaints that make you think of a heart attack. Difficulty breathing, severe pain, and chest tightness are among the symptoms of broken heart syndrome, known in specialist circles as Takotsubo syndrome or stress cardiomyopathy.
Amazing: lovesickness can have the same effect as a heart attack
Although the symptoms initially suggest a heart attack, broken heart syndrome has other triggers. According to the AOK, the complaints are caused by severe emotional stress. That could be the death of a loved one, but also lovesickness. In broken heart syndrome, the amount of the stress hormones adrenaline, noradrenaline and dopamine skyrocketso that the lower part of the left ventricle just stops moving, informs the medical newspaper. The likely cause is believed to be that the blood vessels in the heart contract so tightly in response to stress that the heart muscle can no longer pump. In the case of a real heart attack, on the other hand, there is usually a vascular occlusion due to arteriosclerosis, which leads to the death of myocardial tissue.
According to the AOK The following symptoms speak for a broken heart syndrome:
- severe chest pain
- shortness of breath
- increased cardiac enzyme levels in the blood and an altered cardiac current curve in the EKG
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Broken Heart Syndrome: Corona will exacerbate the situation
As a new study It can be concluded that broken heart syndrome is becoming more and more common. the taz quotes the lead study author Dr. Susan Cheng from the Smidt Heart Institute in Los Angeles: “The older we get and the more responsibility we take on in life and at work, the higher our stress level is. And with increasing digitization in all areas of our life, environmental stressors have also increased ”. The study by Cheng and colleagues is based on data from Americans that were recorded before the corona pandemic.
Cheng appreciates that taz according to the fact that the broken heart cases will increase due to Corona: “We know that the pandemic has profound effects on the connection between the heart and the brain. We are only at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to measuring these effects, ”says the cardiologist. (jg)