Angina in the Broken Heart Syndrome: Emotional or Physical Chest Pain?

摘要

My heart is burning is a common metaphor used to describe the intense emotional pain. Indeed, often emotional pain, sadness, or grief are experienced as physical pain distinctly in the heart region. Although medical research has tended to concentrate on physical pain, it has well known that the emotional pain caused by emotional distress (such as a relationship break-up or the death of a loved one, broken heart) is more deeply felt and longer lasting than that physical pain caused by physical injuries.1'2 An association between emotional or physical stressful triggers and adverse cardiovascular events has been recognized for many years. Stress cardiomyopathy, also known as Takotsubo cardiomy-opathy or Broken Heart Syndrome, is commonly triggered by severe emotional, psychological, or physical stress and occurs primarily in postmenopausal women.