Imagine the stress on the heart for people who don’t have a loved one to share Valentine’s Day with. Imagine how much that stress increases for those who suddenly lose a loved one and have to face this day of mutual love alone. As much as 5 percent of heart attacks are really “broken heart” syndrome, said Dr. Ilan Wittstein, cardiologist at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine who was part of the team who first coined the term “broken heart” syndrome, also known as stress cardiomyopathy. It is believed that an outpouring of stress hormones causes the heart to lose its pumping ability and fail in those who are most susceptible. 90 percent of the victims are post-menopausal women, Wittstein said to me in an interview. He added that the condition is treatable and usually reversible. The heart swells and is stunned, but begins to return to normal over several months. In other words, it is possible to heal a broken heart after all.
The official Valentine’s Day hormone is oxytocin, the hormone of love and sex. We know it as the hormone which pushes out breast milk but it is also released with expressions of affection and touch as well as during sexual orgasm said David J. Linden, PhD, a neurophysiology also at Johns Hopkins and author of Touch: The Science of Hand, Heart, and Mind.
What a cruel irony, if that first manifestation of heart disease occurs during Valentine’s Day, rendering an afflicted man unable to express his physical love for his partner. But for those for whom heart disease is ruled out and is not the cause of a man’s erectile dysfunction, the cure is a mixture of champagne, dark chocolate (containing heart healthy anti-oxidants and resveratrol) an Oxycontin-releasing activity and the little blue pill to help make it happen.
No comments:
Post a Comment