Professor Claire Mounier-Véhier responds by pedaling on her exercise bike.
Eliminating stress is part of the prevention against Takotsubo, an atypical disease against which the cardiologist of the Lille University Hospital (North) warns.
1,400 patients are affected each year.
But with the Covid-19, the number of “broken hearts” is increasing.
How can our hearts “break”?
CLAIRE MOUNIER-VÉHIER.
By a sudden discharge of stress hormones.
This can happen after a great emotion, positive or negative - heartache, bereavement, announcement of cancer or conversely winning the lottery.
The heart, paralyzed by this discharge is dumbfounded, it is no longer able to contract.
Isn't that a heart attack?
No, even if they have long been confused.
It was the Japanese who discovered the disease in the 1990s and named it Takotsubo, because the heart takes the shape of this amphora, a sort of octopus trap.
The risk goes to sudden death, but it is often acute heart failure.
In 90% of cases, we recover after hospitalization, treatment and rehabilitation by a physiotherapist.
If in doubt, call 15.
What are the symptoms ?
A vice in the chest that lasts more than ten minutes, moves in the jaw, in the arm.
The urge to vomit which rises, the heart racing, the impression that we are leaving.
Who is concerned ?
Nine times out of ten, women.
Mainly menopausal, because before, estrogen protects the heart from emotions.
But we have very young profiles.
These are the anxious, hyperempathetic personalities.
I myself am the ideal candidate for Takotsubo!
This goes from women in great precariousness to the senior manager who will always have more to prove than a man.
The stress of Covid, teleworking, the sedentary lifestyle that eats us up, are increasing the number of cases.
According to an American study, they were multiplied by 4.58.
In my CHU we went from one to two, even three per month.
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Can we prevent it?
Yes.
Physical activity - even going up the stairs - is a good stress reliever.
On a daily basis, you have to listen to your body, cut through flash naps, remove the laptop for a few minutes.
There are good tutorials on the Internet on cardiac coherence.
I shamelessly tell my patients that I sometimes need five minutes to get off to a better start.