What Becomes of the Brokenhearted?

In Swim at Your Own Risk, a short story I published earlier this year, 8-year-old Tammy tells her best friend that six months after her grandfather died, “Grandma died of a broken heart.”  While the narrator thinks he knows better, there is some medical basis for her claim.

Napoleon's Farewell to Josephine (circa 1891) by Laslett John Pott.

Broken Heart Syndrome, also called Takotsubo syndrome or stress cardiomyopathy, is a rare but real condition that is thought to affect less than 5% of the U.S. population. But research suggests the number of people with the syndrome may be on the rise. Individuals with the syndrome, which is more common in woman than in men, experience symptoms such as chest pain and shortness of breath that mimic a heart attack, but are not caused by the coronary artery blockage. Instead, strong emotional responses that occur with the loss of a partner, a serious illness, or an intense argument can lead to an enlargement of the heart that interferes with its normal function.

The condition was first described by a Japanese team of physicians in the early 1990s; in affected individuals, the shape of the heart changes and bears a resemblance to a tako-tsubo, a clay pot used to trap octopuses. Interestingly, another team of researchers published a study in 2016 that shows that strong positive emotions can prompt a similar constellation of symptoms (with a different area of the heart becoming enlarged) that they dubbed “happy heart” syndrome. This condition is found more frequently among men! Perhaps there’s a short story somewhere in here, as well.

Fortunately, most people with Broken Heart Syndrome respond well to drugs that control blood pressure and therapy to reduce stress. In literature and in song the path to recovery from a broken heart may be less clear. Jimmy Ruffin’s What Becomes of the Brokenhearted? may capture it best:

What becomes of the broken-hearted

Who had love that's now departed?

I know I've got to find

Some kind of peace of mind

Maybe

Art note: The painting that accompanies this post is Napoleon’s Farewell to Josephine (circa 1891) by Laslett John Pott. The painting captures the moment in 1809 when Napoleon Bonaparte left his wife because they had not conceived an heir. While Josephine apparently did not suffer from Broken Heart Syndrome—she survived for another five years, dying of pneumonia at age 50—various sources state that Josephine’s name was among Bonaparte’s last words.