Can a person really die from being too sad?

This is a very interesting question. The answer is unequivocally; yes!

There is actually a defined syndrome in medicine in which a person can have acute heart failure from being sad or stressed.

It has been fairly well defined by the Japanese as takotsubo syndrome. It also has other names, one of which is broken heart syndrome.

It usually occurs in elderly women who undergo a personal loss. In this syndrome the left ventricle of our heart, which is the main pumping chamber, hypertrophies (becomes too big). As a result the heart can no longer push the blood around the body adequately.

Not only does this cause loss of good blood flow to the extremities, but also the blood can begin to back up into the lungs causing fluid overload and the patient becoming short of breath.
In severe cases the patient can die. If this sounds like congestive heart failure, it is, because physiologically it is the same thing.

The difference is with takotsubo syndrome when the stress or sadness resolves the ventricular issues and resulting symptoms also resolve and the heart returns to its previous state.

I often have people say I don’t think I’m having heart problems, I’m just under a lot of stress. It’s important to keep in mind our psyche, brain, heart and all of the rest of our body, for that matter, are not separate from one another. One can certainly and quite often does effect the other.

Our mental health is just as important as our physical health. Let’s keep a good balance in our lives!

Ask Dr Berry a question!

David M. Berry, M.D.
Tri-Lakes Medical Center
303 Medical Center Dr.
Batesville, MS 38606