Bereavement, the period of mourning after a death, has been linked to a host of mental and physical conditions. The heartbreak of losing a loved one has been associated with depression, heart disease, suicidal thoughts or behaviors, hypertension, insomnia, and post-traumatic stress disorder- and now irregular heart beat.
A new Danish study reveals that losing loved ones puts individuals at risk of irregular heart beat- and the risk seems to be greatest in those younger than 60 or most surprised by their partner's death.
Researchers from Aarhus University found that the death of a partner significantly increased a person's risk of developing atrial fibrillation, also known as irregular heartbeat, for up to a year afterward.
Numerous studies have linked stressful life events to heart attack or stroke, but links between stress and irregular heartbeat have not been clearly identified. Bereavement, or the period of grief and mourning after the death of a loved one, has been linked to a host of problems including cardiovascular disease, depression and even death.
To determine whether there were links between bereavement and atrial fibrillation, researchers looked at data from 974,732 people from 1995 to 2014. Researchers noted that 88,612 of the participants had been newly diagnosed with atrial fibrillation and 886,120 were healthy controls who were matched for age and sex.
After comparing participants who had been diagnosed with atrial fibrillation to healthy controls, researchers found that people diagnosed with irregular heartbeat were more likely to have cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
However, the risk of developing atrial fibrillation or irregular heartbeat for the first time was 41 percent higher among individuals who have experienced bereavement compared to those who had not experienced bereavement, according to data analysis. The findings held true even after accounting for gender and other underlying health conditions.
The risk of irregular heartbeat, which was greatest eight days to 14 days following a death, declined until after a year where there was no difference between those who've bereaved and those who've not.
Study results also revealed that people under the age of 60 were more than twice as likely to develop irregular heartbeat after losing a loved one, and those whose partners were relatively healthy in the month before death were 57 percent more likely to develop irregular heart beat.
"The severely stressful life event of losing a partner was followed by a transiently increased risk of atrial fibrillation lasting for 1 year, especially for the least predicted losses," researchers wrote in the study.
The findings were published in the journal Open Heart.
