EDITORIAL – No need for a total eclipse of the heart

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, a headline in yesterday’s edition of The New York Times… Just in time for Valentine’s Day, a headline in yesterday’s edition of The New York Times read, “Sudden Stress Breaks Hearts, a Report Says.”

According to an article in The New England Journal of Medicine, 18 women and one man who were all in general good health, with no history of heart disease, went to coronary care units in Baltimore, Md., for chest pains and weakening of the heart. Researchers reported that sudden emotional stress — from grief, anger, shock or fear — could cause heart failure. It’s a little-known and poorly understood syndrome that seems to affect primarily women. For now, doctors have nicknamed the condition broken heart syndrome.

Broken heart syndrome is not to be confused with a heart attack. Stress-induced heart failure causes the heart’s strength to decrease, resulting in an inability to pump blood. The condition is only temporary.

Dr. Ilan S. Wittstein, a cardiologist at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and lead author of the article, said there are about six reported cases a year. “They seem to come in waves,” he said. “We had three in the past 10 days.”

In no way should research into a potentially serious medical condition be taken lightly.

Wittstein emphasized, “It’s important for people to know that this is something that emotional stress truly can do.”

It is unfortunate that people are experiencing so much stress, especially around Valentine’s Day. It is a day that gets more attention than it deserves, thanks to commercialization and consumer culture, but that’s what a wannabe holiday needs — money. There is no other driving force behind it, no modern-day religious observation. It’s almost inescapable, so just go ahead and embrace it for the one day, and then get over it.

There is no reason to risk breaking your heart — literally or figuratively — over making dinner reservations at the right restaurant or constantly questioning whether or not you purchased the proper overpriced present.

Valentine’s Day cannot save a relationship in shambles, nor can it spark love that doesn’t exist. What it does is remind elementary school children everywhere that if you make a Valentine for one classmate, you have to make one for everybody else, too. The stress starts early, doesn’t it?

Ladies and gentlemen, our hearts were not designed for this kind of annual torment. In the same way that we can take but so many cheesy Valentine’s Day songs and Lifetime movie marathons, the emotional stress we take on, for whatever well-intended reasons, is no good for us.

The broken heart syndrome study is still in its early stages. And although several other cardiologists agree with the concept, there are skeptics. Dr. Deborah Davice Ascheim of the heart failure center at Columbia University Medical Center of New York-Presbyterian, said the theory deserved more study. “It’s intriguing, but I don’t buy it,” she said.

Ah, yes, there must be at least one skeptic when it comes to matters of the heart, right?