Can you die from a broken heart?

Some people talk about "broken heart syndrome", known more formally as stress cardiomyopathy or takotsubo cardiomyopathy. According to the British Heart Foundation, it is a "temporary condition where your heart muscle becomes suddenly weakened or stunned. The left ventricle, one of the heart's chambers, changes shape."It can be brought on by a shock. "About three quarters of people diagnosed with takotsubo cardiomyopathy have experienced significant emotional or physical stress prior to becoming unwell," the charity says.This stress might be bereavement but it could be a shock of another kind. There are documented cases of people suffering the condition after being frightened by colleagues pulling a prank, or suffering the stress of speaking to a large group of people. It's speculated that the sudden release of hormones - in particular, adrenaline - causes the stunning of the heart muscle.This is different from a heart attack, which is a stopping of the heart because the blood supply is constricted, perhaps by clogged arteries.Read more hereHow does grief cause physical pain?Reynolds was leading lady in a succession of major Hollywood musicals andcomedies in the 1950s and 60s.She rose to stardom with Singin' in the Rain, at the age of only 19.She received a best actress Academy Award nomination for the 1964 musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown.Her other films included 1973 animated film Charlotte's Web, in which she provided the voice for the eponymous spider.In 2015 she was given a lifetime achievement award by the Screen Actors Guild. The award was presented to her by her daughter.Reynolds married singer Eddie Fisher in 1955 and had two children, Carrie and Todd. The couple divorced in 1959 after news emerged of his affair with movie star Elizabeth Taylor.Reynolds married twice more.The actress has a sometimes strained relationship with her actress daughter,who wrote about it in her semi-autobiographical novel Postcards from the Edge.The pair stopped speaking to each other for many years but became closer later in life.In an interview last month with US radio network NPR, Fisher said her motherwas "an immensely powerful woman" whom she admired "very much".As people gathered to pay their respects to the actress at Hollywood's Walk of Fame, one couple, Jose and Daniela Barrera, appeared to speak for many after a year marked by celebrity deaths."It's just, you know, a sad time I guess," Jose told the Reuters news agency."With the closing of the year and so many deaths in the year, it's just sad.""It was so sad," added Daniela. "It was a shocker. I mean, what were the odds of this happening? It was incredible finding out, sad."