What is broken heart syndrome and who is most at risk?

Experts say postmenopausal women are most at risk of broken heart syndrome. (Adobe Stock) Link copiedShareShare articleWhen Christine Collard woke during the night in 2022 unable to catch her breath, she remembers feeling panicked. "You don't know what's going on, which makes you panic even more," says Christine, from Mount Compass in South Australia/Ngarrindjeri (Warki), Peramangk, and Kaurna lands. "And I had a slight pain on the right-hand side of my chest." Christine's husband called an ambulance, believing his wife was having a heart attack. But when doctors began running tests at the hospital, they diagnosed her with broken heart syndrome, a painful heart condition associated with intense stress. "I do suffer from a panic disorder. When something sets it off, it snowballs and turns into something quite severe," she says. "I had a stressful family matter happening at the time, which contributed to the onset of the syndrome." Professor Jason Kovacic says broken heart syndrome is a sudden, temporary weakening of the heart muscle function. The institute director and CEO of the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute says it is also referred to as takotsubo cardiomyopathy. The name takotsubo comes from a Japanese word for octopus pot. (Supplied: St Vincent's Heart Health) "The name takotsubo comes from a Japanese word for octopus pot, which has a distinctive shape where the entry to the pot is quite narrow and then it balloons out," he says. "That's what the takotsubo heart looks like … the apex part of the heart balloons right out and dilates and isn't contracting as well as it should." Professor Gary Jennings is a cardiologist and chief medical adviser with the Heart Foundation. He says broken heart syndrome accounts for about 2 per cent of patients presenting with symptoms similar to those during a heart attack. "It's an acute and very distressing condition," he says. "Chest pain can be a big part of it, breathlessness, perhaps the rhythm of the heart can change." Professor Kovacic says anyone experiencing these symptoms should seek urgent medical assistance by calling Triple Zero (000). "As with any acute presentations with heart failure or when the heart isn't pumping, it can be fatal," he says. "We need to run a whole bunch of tests, including ECG [electrocardiograms], blood tests, angiograms to properly figure out what's going on." Our experts say the condition is commonly triggered by intense emotional or physical stress. "Presentations often occur in the context of almost getting hit by a bus, natural disasters, the sudden death of a loved one, the break-up of a long-standing relationship," Professor Kovacic says. "[Sometimes it's] physical injuries; I've seen a lady with a broken hip who then developed broken heart syndrome a day or so later." Mark Brown experienced broken heart syndrome after the death of his beloved cattle dog. (Supplied: Mark Brown) Mark Brown was diagnosed with the condition after the death of his 16-year-old cattle dog "Oiy" five years ago. "It happened about five days after I put her down," says the 57-year-old from Witta/Jinibara, Queensland. Emergency doctors told Mark he'd suffered from "stress-induced cardiomyopathy known as broken heart syndrome, which in turn led to a heart attack". Experts say the condition is more common in postmenopausal women and less common in men, "particularly in younger men". "No one really knows or understands why postmenopausal women specifically are more likely to be presenting with it," Professor Kovacic says. "The mechanism for the syndrome sort of suggests that they're more susceptible in relation to the surge in cortisol and stress hormones. "The sex-specific differences are a huge area of research that we're really active in." Victor Chang Cardiac Research Centre director Jason Kovacic in the centre's lab. (ABC News: Keana Naughton) He says the traditional risk factors of heart disease, such as being overweight, smoking, diabetes, poor diet, "don't necessarily play into the risk factors for broken heart syndrome". "The key risk factors for this are increasing age, female sex, underlying acute or chronic mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety and other underlying complicating medical conditions," Professor Kovacic says. Christine says she was prescribed heart failure medications and has regular scans to monitor her heart health. "It was quite frightening; it took me a few months to get over it," she says. While broken heart syndrome can be fatal, there is no official treatment — but doctors are trialling a medication used for high blood pressure, in the hope it can mend a broken heart too. "Now I have to watch my stress levels closely, I have regular scans of my heart twice a year. "I've just had one and they said it was all looking very good." Professor Kovacic says heart failure medications are often used to help the heart get stronger. "We'll monitor people in hospital for a fe

What is broken heart syndrome and who is most at risk?

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What is broken heart syndrome and who is most at risk?

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