Heartbreak: A Journalist Studies the Science of Divorce
A Slight Change of Plans
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How Does Heartbreak Affect Your Immune System?
The language of heartbreak may sometimes sound mundane, but the havoc it inflicts on our brains and bodies is trenchant. People who have suffered lost love face an elevated risk of serious medical woes. It's not just their metaphorically sundered hearts, although cardiac risk is part of it. Their immune systems falter. Even their language skills drop off. Why would evolution equip us with an operating system so easily weakened by an event as common as the denial of love? One genomic researcher went so far as to say heartbreak is one of the hidden land mines of human existence.
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