You Really Can Die of a Broken Heart

So many people under high stress actually die, they have a sudden heart attack, like during time of emotional stress.

5 or 10% of heart attacks start during extreme stress. A family argument, a car accident. But there's a unique syndrome in women, way more than men, called broken heart syndrome, where women get bad news, something really big. They start to have a full blown heart attack syndrome. Tightness, sweating, shortness of breath, nausea. And they go to the emergency room, and it looks like a heart attack on ekg. So they go right to the cath lab. We don't find any blockage. That's been called the broken heart syndrome. Extreme stress, probably extreme discharge of noradrenaline, maybe causes the arteries to clamp down briefly. And these women tend to tend to recover, but they're prone to having it on a repeated basis, and it can have some consequences for your longevity.