Latest news with #Takotsubo
Jordan News
22-05-2025
- Health
- Jordan News
Men More Likely to Die from Broken Heart Syndrome - Jordan News
A new study has found that "Broken Heart Syndrome", though more commonly diagnosed in women, may pose a greater risk of death and serious complications in men. اضافة اعلان Also known as Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, Broken Heart Syndrome is often triggered by emotional or physical stress and can lead to dangerous conditions such as heart failure, atrial fibrillation, stroke, and cardiogenic shock. According to Healthline, the study suggests that men may have a higher mortality rate from Takotsubo cardiomyopathy compared to women. 'We were surprised by the relatively high mortality rate from Takotsubo cardiomyopathy during our five-year study, as well as the increase in in-hospital complications,' said Dr. Mohammad Reza Mowahhed, the study's lead author from the Sarver Heart Center at the University of Arizona. Women More Frequently Diagnosed — But Men Fare Worse Although around 80% of cases in the study were women, the outcomes in male patients were significantly worse. The reasons for this sex-based difference in outcomes remain unclear, as Takotsubo is still a relatively rare and not fully understood diagnosis. What Causes a Broken Heart? Takotsubo cardiomyopathy earned the nickname "Broken Heart Syndrome" because it often follows sudden emotional trauma, such as the loss of a loved one, but can also arise from intense fear, accidents, or major surgeries. For this reason, it's also referred to as "stress-induced cardiomyopathy." The prevailing theory is that a surge of stress hormones (catecholamines) — such as norepinephrine and adrenaline — during emotional or physical shock 'stuns' the left ventricle, temporarily impairing its ability to pump blood effectively. While more research is needed, the findings stress the importance of recognizing the severity of this condition in both men and women, and ensuring timely diagnosis and management — especially in male patients, who may be at higher risk of fatal complications.
USA Today
15-05-2025
- Health
- USA Today
Men die of a broken heart more often than women, new study finds
Men die of a broken heart more often than women, new study finds Show Caption Hide Caption Vegetarian diets can reduce risk of heart disease and death Spanning over two decades of research, a new comprehensive study is now underscoring the profound protective effects of plant-based eating habits. unbranded - Lifestyle Men are more likely to die from "broken heart syndrome" than women are, according to a new study published. Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy, also known as broken heart syndrome, is brought on by physical or emotional stress and can affect people suffering from a traumatic event, like the death of a loved one or a divorce, according to a study published by the Journal of the American Heart Association. The study found that, while the syndrome is more likely to affect women, men are more likely to die from it. Here's what you should know about the syndrome. What is broken heart syndrome? The syndrome "is a reversible left ventricle dysfunction and is triggered by emotional stress, predominantly in women, or physical stress, predominantly in men," the study stated. "This condition is known to be associated with sex and race disparities and can lead to significant in‐hospital mortality and morbidity." Cannabis user under 50? Study shows they might be 6 times more likely to have a heart attack Who did the researchers study? The study looked at a total of 199,890 patients with broken heart syndrome who were over the age of 18 from 2016 to 2020, according to what was published in the journal. The study found that the 83% of those affected by the syndrome were women. Men more than 2x likely to die from broken heart syndrome While more women were studied than men, the study found that men were more than twice as likely to die from the syndrome as women. While 5.5% of the female patients studied died due to the syndrome, men saw a higher mortality rate at 11.2%, the study found. Can outcomes of the syndrome be improved? Over the course of the study, researchers did not see any improvement in the mortality rate and "major complications were substantial." Those being treated for Takotsubo cardiomyopathy saw the following complications: Congestive heart failure occurred in 35.9% of patients Atrial fibrillation, when one's heartbeat is irregular, occurred in 20.7% of patients Cardiogenic shock, a life-threatening condition when one's heart suddenly becomes unable to pump enough blood, according to the Mayo Clinic, occurred in 6.6% Stroke occurred in 5.3% of patients Cardiac arrest occurred in 3.4% of patients However, that study stated that to improve the outcome of patients, their care needs to be improved first. "Clinicians need to improve care of these patients to reduce mortality and study the reason for sex differences in outcome," the study stated. Julia is a trending reporter for USA TODAY. Connect with her on LinkedIn,X, Instagram and TikTok: @juliamariegz, or email her at jgomez@
Medscape
14-05-2025
- Health
- Medscape
Yes, You Can Die From a Broken Heart
This transcript has been edited for clarity. Welcome to Impact Factor , your weekly dose of commentary on a new medical study. I'm Dr F. Perry Wilson from the Yale School of Medicine. A patient comes crashing into the emergency room with severe chest pain. The EKG looks like this: As a doctor, if you see this, you're calling the cardiac cath lab. This is an ST-elevation myocardial infarction — the big one — indicative of a blood clot blocking blood flow to a large section of the heart. The sooner you get that blood clot out, the better chance the patient has to survive. So the patient is rushed to the cath lab, and they find… nothing. Clear coronaries. No blood clot. Further questioning reveals that the patient, an older woman, lost her husband recently. This is stress-induced cardiomyopathy, medically known as Takotsubo cardiomyopathy (TC). It's the pathophysiologic manifestation of a broken heart. First described in 1991, Takotsubo syndrome occurs in the setting of deep psychological, emotional, or physical stress. Despite being aware of it for decades, we still don't really understand what the underlying processes are, though they probably have something to do with an excess of catecholamines. But a new study cobbles together data from across the United States to give us new insight into the epidemiology and outcomes of the syndrome. Interestingly, women are much more likely to get a broken heart. But men are more likely to die from it. We got a nice Takotsubo analysis this week, thanks to this article in the Journal of the American Heart Association , from Mohammad Movahed of the University of Arizona and colleagues. They used a database called the National Inpatient Sample. It is what it sounds like: a sample of data from patients hospitalized around the nation. It's a weighted dataset; it doesn't have data from every hospitalization, but individual patients in the dataset can stand in for those who aren't there. This allows you to estimate stuff like the total number of admissions for a certain diagnosis across the whole country. The researchers flagged admissions with a diagnosis code for TC. All told, they identified 39,984 individuals with the syndrome, which scales up to an estimated 199,890 US admissions in total from 2016-2020 — about 40,000 admissions per year in this country. It's not a huge number; there are around 600,000 admissions per year for acute myocardial infarction, but it's not exactly rare. Women were much more likely to have TC; 83% of all the cases were female. You can see here a slight increase in prevalence over time, but nothing dramatic, especially considering that the last year of data would encompass the start of the COVID pandemic. If we break down the incidence by age group, you can see an interesting increase in risk as people got older, with a near doubling of risk after age 45. People have hypothesized that estrogen may play a protective role in this condition, so we might be seeing an increased risk associated with menopause here, but I would have liked to see this stratified by sex to be certain. The authors compare outcomes among those hospitalized with TC to outcomes of hospitalized patients without TC. That feels like an overly broad control group, to be honest, so it isn't surprising that there is, for example, a 12-fold risk for cardiogenic shock compared with the general inpatient population. Individuals admitted to the hospital with other types of heart disease, or a heart attack, would have told us a bit more about the unique risks of TC. Maybe next time. Of course, the worst possible outcome is death, and 6.58% of the patients with TC died during their admission. That's against a background rate of 2.4% of all other patients in the hospital — about a threefold increase in mortality risk. But men with TC were much more likely to die than women, with an 11.2% mortality rate compared with 5.5% among women. This has also been increasing over time. There's no clear explanation for the discrepancy. Men were more likely to develop the condition from physical, as opposed to emotional, stress, and that might change the risk profile. Alternatively, it's possible that this is a 'stubborn man' phenomenon; men might be less likely to go to the hospital when symptoms are mild, so if they do make it to the hospital, they are in worse shape. Take care of yourselves, guys. This paper may have raised more questions than answers, but I appreciate the opportunity to highlight something we often forget — that there is a profound connection between our minds, our emotions, and our bodies, and that connection is not purely subjective. Takotsubo cardiomyopathy is a potentially fatal disease, with all the risks of a major heart attack and without a convenient treatment like cardiac catheterization. And though I hope most of us never experience the levels of stress — emotional or otherwise — that would precipitate this disease, the very existence of a syndrome like this shows us that stress can be toxic. None of us can live stress-free lives, of course, and I'm not sure what the dose-response effect is, but in the end, perhaps knowing that how we feel affects how we feel can help us better manage how we feel.
Associated Press
14-05-2025
- Health
- Associated Press
The risk of death or complications from broken heart syndrome was high from 2016 to 2020
Research Highlights: Embargoed until 4 a.m. CT/5 a.m. ET Wednesday, May 14, 2025 ( NewMediaWire ) - May 14, 2025 - DALLAS — Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, also known as broken heart syndrome, is associated with a high rate of death and complications, and those rates were unchanged between 2016 and 2020, according to new research published today in the Journal of the American Heart Association, an open-access, peer-reviewed journal of the American Heart Association. Takotsubo cardiomyopathy is a stress-related heart condition in which part of the heart temporarily enlarges and doesn't pump well. It is thought to be a reaction to a surge of stress hormones that can be caused by an emotionally or physically stressful event, such as the death of a loved one or a divorce. It can lead to severe, short-term failure of the heart muscle and can be fatal. Takotsubo cardiomyopathy may be misdiagnosed as a heart attack because the symptoms and test results are similar. This study is one of the largest to assess in-hospital death rates and complications of the condition, as well as differences by sex, age and race over five years. 'We were surprised to find that the death rate from Takotsubo cardiomyopathy was relatively high without significant changes over the five-year study, and the rate of in-hospital complications also was elevated,' said study author M. Reza Movahed, M.D., Ph.D., an interventional cardiologist and clinical professor of medicine at the University of Arizona's Sarver Heart Center in Tucson, Arizona. 'The continued high death rate is alarming, suggesting that more research be done for better treatment and finding new therapeutic approaches to this condition.' Researchers reviewed health records in the Nationwide Inpatient Sample database to identify people diagnosed with Takotsubo cardiomyopathy from 2016 to 2020. The analysis found: 'Takotsubo cardiomyopathy is a serious condition with a substantial risk of death and severe complications,' Movahed said. 'The health care team needs to carefully review coronary angiograms that show no significant coronary disease with classic appearance of left ventricular motion, suggesting any subtypes of stress-induced cardiomyopathy. These patients should be monitored for serious complications and treated promptly. Some complications, such as embolic stroke, may be preventable with an early initiation of anti-clotting medications in patients with a substantially weakened heart muscle or with an irregular heart rhythm called atrial fibrillation that increases the risk of stroke.' He also noted that age-related findings could serve as a useful diagnostic tool in discriminating between heart attack/chest pain and Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, which may prompt earlier diagnosis of the condition and could also remove assumptions that Takotsubo cardiomyopathy only occurs in the elderly. Among the study's limitations is that it relied on data from hospital codes, which could have errors or overcount patients hospitalized more than once or transferred to another hospital. In addition, there was no information on outpatient data, different types of Takotsubo cardiomyopathy or other conditions that may have contributed to patients' deaths. Movahed said further research is needed about the management of patients with Takotsubo cardiomyopathy and the reason behind differences in death rates between men and women. Study details, background and design: Co-authors, disclosures and funding sources are listed in the manuscript. Studies published in the American Heart Association's scientific journals are peer-reviewed. The statements and conclusions in each manuscript are solely those of the study authors and do not necessarily reflect the Association's policy or position. The Association makes no representation or guarantee as to their accuracy or reliability. The Association receives more than 85% of its revenue from sources other than corporations. These sources include contributions from individuals, foundations and estates, as well as investment earnings and revenue from the sale of our educational materials. Corporations (including pharmaceutical, device manufacturers and other companies) also make donations to the Association. The Association has strict policies to prevent any donations from influencing its science content. A detailed listing of revenue from foundations and corporations including health insurance providers and the Association's overall financial information are available here. Additional Resources: ### About the American Heart Association The American Heart Association is a relentless force for a world of longer, healthier lives. Dedicated to ensuring equitable health in all communities, the organization has been a leading source of health information for more than one hundred years. Supported by more than 35 million volunteers globally, we fund groundbreaking research, advocate for the public's health, and provide critical resources to save and improve lives affected by cardiovascular disease and stroke. By driving breakthroughs and implementing proven solutions in science, policy, and care, we work tirelessly to advance health and transform lives every day. Connect with us on Facebook, X or by calling 1-800-AHA-USA1. For Media Inquiries and AHA/ASA Expert Perspective: 214-706-1173 Bridgette McNeill: [email protected] For Public Inquiries: 1-800-AHA-USA1 (242-8721) and
