ORLANDO, Fla. — The College of Medicine at the University of Central Florida is studying how emotional stress impacts heart health through a condition known as “broken heart syndrome.”
- UCF researchers studying "broken heart syndrome"
- Syndrome brought on by emotional stress, like loss of loved one
- Doctor believes syndrome caused when heart overproduces adrenaline
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“It’s like you’re having a heart attack, but it’s not really a heart attack,” explained Dr. Steven Ebert. “You either get very weak beating or no beating at all.”
The syndrome is brought on by severe emotional stress, such as sudden loss of a loved one or a catastrophic event.
Ebert has studied broken heart syndrome for about a decade. He says it’s not commonly known that the heart can produce adrenaline, in addition to other parts of the body.
He believes broken heart syndrome is caused when the heart overproduces adrenaline, which stunts heartbeats and limits blood flow, on top of the adrenaline coming from the nerves and blood stream.
“Once you reach a certain maximum, if you keep putting more of the hormone on there, the heart stops responding,” Ebert said. “It’s like a defensive mechanism because it would literally probably break, because it’s beating so heavily.”
Ebert has found broken heart syndrome mostly affects women, especially post-menopausal women. He believes estrogen protects the heart against stress hormones, so losing estrogen means that shield is weakened.
“There’s a lot of unknowns and that’s the power of research, is trying to answer those unknown questions,” Ebert said.
