Patients With Bipolar Disorder May be at Increased Risk of Suicide if They Smoke.

Medwire(Grasmo http://tinyurl.com/smoking-and-suicide) reports that, according to a study published online Oct. 14 in the journal Bipolar Disorders, “current cigarette smoking is a predictor for current and nine-month suicidal ideation and behavior in” patients with bipolar disorder (BD). After examining “the association between smoking, suicidality, and prospective suicide attempts in 116 BD patients over a nine-month period,” Harvard Medical School researchers found that smokers were “5.25-fold more likely to attempt suicide than nonsmokers (16.1 percent vs. 3.5 percent).”