Around the early 1990s, Japanese researchers demonstrated for the first time that suffering from severe emotional or physical stress can cause a sometimes temporary, sometimes lethal heart disease called shattered heart syndrome or takotsubo cardiomyopathy .
WHEN IS IT AT RISK?
Studying the various cases of the disease, doctors have found that the dangerous situations, as regards emotional stress, are:
- Fear, exaggerated fits of anger, the death of a loved one, serious economic or legal difficulties, heated discussions with someone else, traffic accidents, public speaking, surprise parties and unrequited love stories.
While, as far as physical stress is concerned, they are:
- Exaggerated efforts, serious diseases that have nothing to do with the heart, particularly delicate non-cardiac surgery and asthma attacks.
RISK FACTORS
Takotsubo cardiomyopathy can affect anyone.
However, statistical data in hand, it was observed that it usually concerns Asian and Caucasian populations and is more common among female subjects (90% of cases), between 58 and 75 years old. This second peculiarity has led scholars to consider menopause - and the hormonal alterations it causes - as a decisive risk factor.
