Everyone has suffered from a broken heart, or they will in their lifetime. However, a broken heart can cause physical damage on top of emotional turmoil. Takotubo syndrome, also known as broken heart syndrome, is usually triggered by intense stress or personal loss, resulting in long-term heart injury and compromised heart function. Broken heart syndrome affects one group more than others. Researchers from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center report that broken heart syndrome is more common among middle-aged women and older women. Doctors diagnose this condition in older women up to ten times more often than younger women or men of any age.

Particularly, diagnoses of this syndrome have increased since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to senior study author Susan Cheng, MD, Director of the Institute for Research on Healthy Aging at the Smidt Institute, these diagnoses increased before the pandemic started. During this project, the researchers analyzed national hospital data encompassing 135,000 men and women with broken heart syndrome between 2006 and 2017.

That investigation led researchers to determine that women deal with a broken heart more than men. Also, female diagnoses have increased at least six to ten times faster for women between 50 and 74 than for any other group. Ten middle-aged women and six older women receive the same diagnosis for each man of any age group or younger women with broken heart syndrome.

Researchers believe that for women, how the brain and nervous system respond to various stressors tends to change as you get older. Dr. Cheng says a tipping point just beyond midlife where an excess response to stress can impact the heart. When you’re younger, your body can bounce back from experiencing things like heartbreak. However, you may not be able to bounce back as quickly as you get older. This study shows that as you get older, your body changes how it responds to stress and may react more aggressively than when you were younger.

When something happens to us, whether it’s heartbreak or losing a loved one, it can extract a heavy toil and cause a lot of stress. After a stressful or emotional event, like a breakup, your body is under a lot of stress. As a response to this stress, your body can tense up, and you feel like you can’t breathe. Your heart is beating so fast, and you’re thinking of ways to calm it down. People see women as the more emotional beings, so it’s only natural that they are the ones who suffer from broken heart syndrome the most. Older women are more susceptible to broken heart syndrome because our bodies can change how they react to stress as we age. What you may have bounced back from as a younger woman may take more time to recover from as an older woman.

The COVID-19 pandemic was something that a lot of people never thought would happen in their lifetime. Women endured more stress than anyone, so it makes sense that older women would be more susceptible to broken heart syndrome. Luckily, preventing broken heart syndrome is easy. Managing stress in your life can control it, but many doctors will recommend long-term treatment with beta-blockers.