Clinicians’ personal beliefs about the safety and efficacy of statins play a larger role in their likelihood of prescribing the medications than their knowledge of cholesterol guidelines, according to a study published Jan. 4 in the American Journal of Cardiology.

Men who are dissatisfied with their marriages are around 86 percent more likely to experience sudden cardiac death (SCD) than those who are very satisfied, according to research published in the Jan. 1 edition of the American Journal of Cardiology.

A tool designed to assess the psychosocial status of heart transplant candidates may also be able to predict which left ventricular assist device (LVAD) recipients are at the highest risk of being readmitted to the hospital, Cleveland Clinic researchers reported Jan. 9 in Circulation: Heart Failure.

Smoking hookah could raise users’ risk of developing diabetes or becoming obese, the Telegraph has reported of a study out of Brighton and Sussex Medical School.

A high-density electroanatomic mapping study of 75 patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) has concluded that even a regular alcohol intake—up to 14 standard drinks per week—is associated with impairments in electrical signaling and more electrical evidence of scarring, signaling worse outcomes.

Almost 95 percent of patients survived 25 years after discharge for surgical repair of tetralogy of Fallot without requiring a transplant, according to a U.S. registry study published in JAMA Cardiology. While this statistic highlights the “excellent” outcomes for this congenital heart condition, the report’s authors also identified areas for further improvement.

Women with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) live longer than their male counterparts, but those additional years are plagued by a lower quality of life—including greater levels of self-reported anxiety, depression and physical disability—according to an analysis in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Developing an effective triage process for patients on the transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) waitlist could be critical to those patients’ postprocedural outcomes as the intervention continues to gain traction and popularity, researchers reported Jan. 5 in the Journal of the American Heart Association.