Statins are one the world’s most commonly prescribed drugs and by 2020, global sales were estimated to have reached approximately $1trillion. They were first approved for patients at high-risk of cardiovascular disease in 1987. Their approval and subsequent use was on the basis that the accumulation of low-density-lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C) in blood vessels walls is a causative factor in the development of atherosclerosis and hence, cardiovascular disease (CVD). Since the 1980s, iterative clinical practice guidelines for the prevention of CVD have tended to expand the proportion of patients who are potentially eligible for statin treatment. Doctors are now encouraged to aggressively lower LDL-C both in patients both with and without a history of CVD and, in Ireland, about one in three adults over the age of 50 take statins.
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