The BBC, citing a study in JAMA’s Internal Medicine, speculates on whether one can die of a broken heart.

“The study found that, while it happened rarely, the number of people who had a heart attack or a stroke in the month after a loved-one died was double that of a matched control group who were not grieving (50 out of 30,447 in the bereaved group, or 0.16 percent, compared with 67 out of 83,588 in the non-bereaved group, or 0.08 percent).

One of the authors, Dr Sunil Shah of St George’s at the University of London, told the BBC: “We often use the term a ‘broken heart’ to signify the pain of losing a loved-one and our study shows that bereavement can have a direct effect on the health of the heart.”

Photo: Olivier Kaderli via Flickr