Men are more prone to dying because of 'broken heart syndrome'—study
A newly published study in the Journal of the American Heart Association found that men are more likely to die from the so-called "broken heart syndrome" than women.
For their work, the researchers analyzed a total of 199,890 patients in the US who had been hospitalized with the condition called "Takotsubo cardiomyopathy" from 2016 to 2020. This is where the heart’s main pumping chamber becomes dysfunctional due to intense emotional or physical experience.
While it was found that 83% of those affected by the syndrome were women, the researchers noted that mortality was more than double in men at 11.2% in comparison to women at 5.5%.
"The cause of this discrepancy in mortality is not fully understood," their findings read. "Future studies are required to study the reason behind higher mortality in men."
Regardless of gender, however, "individuals with Takotsubo syndrome are at significantly higher risk for a range of serious cardiovascular complications."
These include cardiogenic shock, cardiac arrest, and stroke. According to the Mayo Clinic, it can also cause complications such as pulmonary edema or buildup of fluid in the lungs, low blood pressure, irregular heartbeats, and blood clots in the heart.
Mohammad Movahed, the study's lead author, told NBC News that men possibly have a harder time recovering from broken heart syndrome because they tend to have "less social support to help them manage stress."
"If you have this stressful trigger, and the stress is not gone, that’s probably going to continue to harm the heart, or at least reduce the chance of recovery," he explained.
While there are medications to alleviate heart issues and activities to help manage stress, Movahed said that they "have not found anything so far—any medication, any specific treatment—that can reduce complications or reduce mortality."
