THE HEALTH RISKS OF LOSING A LOVED ONE
Although marriages lasting decades are becoming more and more obsolete in modern society, there still exists that unusual couple that somehow managed to tolerate and even continue to love each other through the decades and even beyond the half century mark. The bond between these two lives are incredible, steeped in strength, endurance, tolerance, patience, understanding and love. Unless the couple is lucky enough to pass on together simultaneously in some undoubtedly poetically tragic way, one must say goodbye to the other and somehow forge ahead until their time comes.
LEFT BEHIND
What happens to the partner left behind? Is the shock of losing their other half so powerful that it actually shortens their remaining years? In lifelong, animal pairings such as swans, wolves and bald eagles, does the one that gets left behind find themselves with a scarce desire to carry on once their lifelong mate expires? Out of the over 5,000 species of animals, only roughly 3-5% form lifelong bonds. Most lifelong animal pairings, driven by the continuation of the species, find the mate left behind typically re-pairing with another after losing their life partner.
But what about us? How common is it for those in their sixties, seventies or even eighties who lose the partner they shared the majority of their lives with to re-pair with another? And more importantly, is losing their partner an expedience to their own demise? A study of 30,000 Britons showed that the risk of heart attack is highest within the first month after bereavement, declining steadily as the first year progresses. Losing a loved one actually doubles the chances of a heart attack. The immense sadness associated with the loss of a partner has led to many people dying within a short, three years of that loss.
The Physiology Behind Loss
According to the Mayo clinic, there is physical evidence of the devastating effects of losing a loved one, and of course the longer you’ve been connected to the person, the more devastating the loss. Known as Broken Heart Syndrome, the blood pumping in and out of the heart becomes temporarily disrupted by the stress hormones released throughout the body at times of great emotional loss. The contraction this produces may be more than just a flicker in the rhythm of your heart valve. The disruption may actually kill you.
Broken Heart Syndrome
In 1991, Japanese researchers identified takotsubo cardiomyopathy, also known as stress cardiomyopathy, or broken heart syndrome. Characterized by sudden, intense chest pains and shortness of breath, the condition is most often brought on by a sudden, tragic event that induces intense negative emotion. Typically, only 10 percent of the test subjects identified with Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy were male, making the condition an overwhelmingly female affliction.
At first, the symptoms mimicked that of a blocked artery, but usually dissipated after one to four weeks. If the pain continued, the patients were aggressively treated with blood pressure medication and breathing treatments similar to those for blocked arteries.
Even with these approaches, of the 45 patients treated, 9 died despite the aggressive medical intervention. The inability to treat, stop or reverse broken heart syndrome naturally coincided with the overall health of the patient, with those inflicted with advanced age, cancer or Alzheimer’s disease most vulnerable.
Know Thy Heart
Knowing that there is a physical interruption of healthy heart function brought on by the stress hormones associated with intense emotional upset, the question becomes just how the loss of a lifetime partner shortens a person’s life overall, if they do indeed make it past the first, most vulnerable few weeks after the loss. Studies have demonstrated that a key component of our immune system that protects us against lethal infections is directly compromised during the period of grief often experienced after the loss of a very dear, long loved partner. However, this phenomenon seemed to only affect those 65 years or older. Younger people seemed much less at risk to the compromise to their immune systems brought on by this type of loss.
Compromised Immunity
The study analyzed the levels of neutrophil, a type of white blood cell which plays a critical role in fending off any invasions of bacteria or other infections that could lead to serious illnesses, such as pneumonia, and other similar afflictions that often claim the lives of the elderly who are going through the bereavement of their partners. The neutrophil is a white blood cell that eats and then kills rapidly dividing bacteria, like those which cause pneumonia. During bereavement, a significant decrease occurs in the neutrophil count, the most abundant type of white blood cell and most significant for fighting off serious infections, leaving the older adult’s immunity significantly weakened.
Additionally, grief further attacks the immune system by disrupting the balance of two hormones, cortisol and dehydroepiandrosterone sulphate (DHEAS), known to be involved in helping us cope with stress.
In young people dealing with the stress associated with the loss of a loved one, the levels of these two hormones remained relatively unaffected, whereas in the elderly, their cortisol levels became very high in relation to the quite lowered levels of DHEAS. DHEAS is known to counteract the harmful effects of cortisol on the immune system during times of high stress. This hormone is known to decrease as we age. Evidence also suggests that other elements of our immune systems might also be compromised by the stress associated with bereavement, specifically T-cells and “natural killer cells”, which lend a hand in fighting viral infections and cancer.
The Widowhood Effect
Further proving that losing a loved one can have a catastrophic effect on the surviving partner, researchers at St. Andrew’s University have identified what they’ve coined as “The Widowhood Effect”, which can threaten the life of younger couples as well as their senior counterparts. Based on the records of more than 58,000 married couples dating back to 1991, whether increasing death rates of the left behind partner was a result of heart attack, cancer, suicide or accident, the overall result was that the social effects of the loss of the love had a significant impact on life expectancy.
As a result of The Widowhood Affect, 40 people died within 10 days of the death of their loved ones, while 12 died on the exact same day. While most deaths occurred within 6 months after their loss, the affect can continue as long as ten years.
Natural Solutions
Given this information, we can combat this phenomenon by offering increased support, kindness and simply more of our time to those who are facing such a devastating loss, thereby reducing the chances the deceased end up being followed too soon by the ones who loved them the most.
