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A broken heart: It's the stuff of folk songs, the stuff of true love. There are plenty of couples who have died within weeks, months or even days of each other. Johnny Cash's death certificate listed "complications from diabetes," but his fans know otherwise—he passed away just months after June's death.
Doctors will tell you, "broken heart syndrome" or stress-induced heart failure is a medical condition—and a perfect example of the heart's power and vulnerability, writes Mimi Guarneri, MD, a practicing cardiologist and author of the new book, The Heart Speaks. "The condition seems to be caused by high levels of hormones that the body produces during severe stress, which can be temporarily toxic to the heart."
In her book, Guarneri weaves the latest medical knowledge with her own personal experiences—hoping to spur conversations that pull people out of their stressful lifestyles. She wants to help them cope better with life-threatening emotions like grief, anger, anxiety, stress.
"I want people to start looking at their lives and see how these events, this stress, grief, anger has affected their health," she says.
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SOURCES: Guarneri, M. The Heart Speaks. Mimi Guarneri, MD, founder and medical director, Scripps Center for Integrative Medicine, La Jolla, Calif. Mehmet Oz, MD, director, cardiovascular services, Columbia University Medical Center, New York. Michael Irwin, MD, professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences, Geffen School of Medicine; director, Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology, UCLA.
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