Intense Grief Can Harm the Heart, Studies Show

Middle-aged women who lose a spouse are at higher risk of heart disease, twin studies show

Anyone who has ever lived through a significant loss knows that grief typically causes great sadness and pain. Colloquially, we may call this phenomenon “heartache” or even “heartbreak” because the ancients thought that the heart – the organ that keeps our blood pumping and our bodies alive – was the physical seat of all emotion.In modern times, we recognize that this perspective is not entirely accurate, as emotions begin in the brain and can affect the gut and many other body parts.

What not everyone knows – but probably should, for the sake of their health and survival – is that grief can harm the body physically, especially after losing a beloved spouse.

Researchers continue to find evidence that being bereaved can cause negative effects physically, often to the heart itself. People who suffer extreme sadness, intense longing and other reactions to grief sometimes suffer serious, and occasionally fatal, heart problems.

How this occurs — and what people can do to protect themselves after a loss, even while still grieving – is described in a pair of recent articles from the respected periodical US NEWS, themselves based on information from studies done at major universities.

Physiologic Changes in the Bereaved

Losing someone – before, during and after – has long been known as one of the most stressful experiences that a person can go through. And stress of any sort often results in bodily inflammation, which in turn can damage the heart and other organs if not properly addressed.

Grieving spouses, especially those middle-aged and older, have statistically significant rates of inflammation, scientists at William Marsh Rice University in Houston, Texas, reported earlier this summer in the journal Psychological Science.

“I was extremely motivated to publish this work because it gives us insight into how severe grief can encourage inflammation to accumulate in the body and put widow(er)s at risk for cardiovascular disease,” study co-author Ryan Linn Brown said in a university news release. “Because we face many stressful events each day as humans, this type of response to stress in the lab means that this same process is likely happening repeatedly throughout each day or week for widows or widowers experiencing more severe grief symptoms.”

He and his colleagues looked at 111 widows and widowers between the ages of 35 and 84 and found that, on average, those who had reported intense grief had nearly 20% greater increase in inflammatory biomarkers compared to people who said they had lesser levels of grief.

After the loss of a spouse, widows and widowers are at greater risk of serious heart problems and even death

Meanwhile, researchers in Sweden, analyzing decades’ worth of data pertaining to heart patients who are natives of that nation, recently found that losing a partner or spouse resulted in a 20% increased risk of dying of congestive heart failure in the four years following the profound loss. Congestive heart failure is a progressively worsening condition in which the heart becomes less and less able to pump blood throughout the body.

The rise in such deaths was more than 75 % more likely within a week of the loss.

The Swedish experts reviewed and analyzed records kept by the government between 1987 and 2018, according to study author Krisztina László, associate professor in global health, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm.

No one yet knows for sure, but scientists think that the problem may be based on the interplay of the neuroendocrine system and the sympathetic nervous system. Cardiologists suggest that swift, effective monitoring of cardiac patients in the immediate aftermath of a major loss may help mitigate the risk, possibly with use of beta blockers or other medications that address high blood pressure.

Good mental health knowledge and practices can help mourners cope with grief and possibly preserve their physical health as well. SevenPonds offers some good advice here in our section on coping with loss.