Regards, Ivan
Posted on 02/09/2005 11:32:52 PM PST by MadIvan
DOCTORS were yesterday urged to recognise the unique symptoms of "broken heart syndrome" in patients who appear to have suffered a heart attack.
Shocking events such as the death of a loved-one or being the victim of crime have long been known as possible triggers for medical conditions such as a heart attack.
Now researchers in the United States have found that sudden emotional stress can also lead to severe but reversible heart-muscle weakness which mimics the symptoms of a heart attack.
The team, writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, said that patients with this condition - stress cardiomyopathy or "broken heart syndrome" - were often misdiagnosed with a massive heart attack.
Instead, they had actually suffered from a surge in adrenalin and other stress hormones that temporarily "stun" the heart.
The researchers, from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, said that while "broken heart syndrome" was not as common as a heart attack, it probably occurred more often than doctors realised.
Dr Ilan Wittstein said: "Our study should help physicians distinguish between stress cardiomyopathy and heart attacks. It should also reassure patients that they have not had permanent heart damage."
The researchers found some people responded to sudden and overwhelming emotional stress by releasing large amounts of stress chemicals such as adrenalin into the bloodstream, as well as breakdown products and small proteins produced by an excited nervous system.
They said these chemicals could be temporarily toxic to the heart, effectively stunning the muscle and producing symptoms similar to a typical heart attack - chest pain, shortness of breath and even heart failure.
By examining a group of 19 patients with symptoms of "broken heart syndrome", the researchers found that it was clinically very different to the typical heart attack.
The patients, 18 of whom were women, had signs of an apparent heart attack after emotional stress, including a death, shock from a surprise party and an armed robbery.
They were compared to seven other patients who had suffered a severe heart attack. Dr Wittstein said: "After observing several cases of ‘broken heart syndrome’ at Hopkins hospitals - most of them in middle-aged or elderly women - we realised that these patients had clinical features quite different from typical cases of heart attack, and that something very different was happening.
"These cases were, initially, difficult to explain because most of the patients were previously healthy and had few risk factors for heart disease."
Tests on these patients showed no blockages in the arteries which supplied the heart. Blood tests also failed to reveal some of the typical signs of a heart attack - such as high levels of cardiac enzymes that are released into the bloodstream from damaged heart muscle.
MRI scans revealed that none of the stressed patients had suffered irreversible muscle damage.
The researchers said recovery rates in the stressed patients were much faster than typically seen after a heart attack. Within a few days, the patients showed dramatic improvement in the heart’s ability to pump and had completely recovered in two weeks.
In comparison, partial recovery after a heart attack can take weeks or months, and often the heart-muscle damage is permanent.
Levels of stress chemicals in the "broken heart" patient group were also significantly higher than in those with a classic heart attack.
Researcher Dr Hunter Champion said: "How stress hormones act to stun the heart remains unknown, but there are several possible explanations that will be the subject of additional studies.
"The chemicals may cause spasm in the coronary arteries, or have a direct toxic effect on the heart muscle, or cause calcium overloads that result in temporary dysfunction."
The researchers said they expected the number of patients diagnosed with "broken heart syndrome" to increase as more doctors learned to recognise its unique features.
Regards, Ivan
Ping!
Been there. I literally thought I was having a heart attack.
But faith will not suffice to raise my head.
Futility! I would that I were dead.
Ditto. It was terrifying.
Uh huh! The left side pain, the wild palpitations, the shortness of breath, and unexplained sweating. Classic symptoms of a heart attack.
The good part about it was that the worry over the apparent "heart attack" made me forget all about the "broken heart".
LOL. YOu're lucky. But I'm not volunteering for another faux heart attack to forget about mine.
Oh, I'm not volunteering either, FRiend!
Just trying to see that oft-mentioned "silver lining".
8>)
Kerry must have needed CPR on Nov. 3rd.
Elizabeth! I'm coming to join you!
it's the big one...
I don't need any scientist to tell me that. I knew it all ready.
great!
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