Category: Medicine

A new study is providing what researchers are calling “unique and important insights” into potential mechanisms contributing to the Takotsubo syndrome (TTS) also known as “broken heart syndrome.”

Results from the retrospective case-control study suggest that chronically heightened stress-associated neurobiological activity may affect both the risk for, and timing of, subsequent TTS.

“The findings suggest that this stress-related acute syndrome doesn’t start simply upon exposure to a stressor, that preexisting brain wiring predates it by quite a while,” study author Ahmed Tawakol, MD, director of nuclear cardiology and co-director of the Cardiovascular Imaging Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, told Medscape Medical News.

The study highlights the need to “pay close attention” to stress reduction in patients who develop TTS as they may face ongoing problems, said Tawakol.

“We should test whether reducing stress leads to health benefits in this subpopulation of patients who develop this syndrome,” he added.