After adjusting for physical and psychiatric illness, patients in Taiwan with an acute coronary syndrome had increased odds of suicide, according to a case-referent study. The odds of suicide were highest during the six months following an acute coronary syndrome and remained high for at least four years.

Adults who smoked between one and 10 cigarettes per day had 1.5 times the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease compared to those who never smoked, according to a prospective cohort study. Smokers also had more than six times the risk of dying from respiratory diseases such as emphysema.

A study of healthy adults found that the mean awake ambulatory blood pressure was often higher than clinic blood pressure and that 15.7 percent of adults with nonelevated clinical blood pressure had masked hypertension.

A woman filed a lawsuit on Dec. 1 against a cardiology center in Houston and a physician alleging they compromised her medical records, the Southeast Texas Record reports.

The FDA expanded the approval of empagliflozin (Jardiance) on Dec. 2 to reduce the risk of cardiovascular death in adults with type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Leading cardiologists hope that Robert Califf, MD, remains as FDA commissioner during Donald Trump’s tenure as President, Reuters reports.

Between 1999 and 2014, the age-adjusted mean triglyceride, total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels decreased significantly in the U.S., according to a survey analysis.

More than 75 percent of respondents to a survey mentioned that there were an adequate or excessive number of pediatric cardiologists, according to a report from major medical societies.