Over the last generation there has been a revolution in heart disease management and prevention brought about by new procedures such as stents but largely due to the management of risk factors including high cholesterol with medication, statin treatment is one of the factors which has had a significant effect on improving the outcomes for patients with vascular disease or at high risk.
Statin treatment has tended to come in for criticism on some social media sites and public opinion has wavered. We now have conclusive evidence that the majority of reported statin side effects are not caused by the statin, but by other factors, with a large meta-analysis concluding ~90% of reported side effects (notably musculoskeletal symptoms) are not being caused by the statins.
In order to target treatment to the people most likely to benefit from lipid lowering, we use a Q-risk to calculate your vascular disease risk. The main factors affecting your risk include your Age, Gender, Family History, Diabetes, other life factors affecting risk include your Smoking History, Cholesterol ( Particularly non-HDL), Blood pressure, Exercise and other chronic diseases.
You can assess your risk using the Q-risk3 calculator
NICE recommends that patients with a Q-risk of > 10% be offered Statin treatment with an aim to reduce risk, if you are known to have vascular disease, the NICE recommendations are to reduce LDL cholesterol to below 2 mmol/L or Non-HDL cholesterol to below 2.6mmol/L, it should be noted other European guidelines have a lower target of LDL.
For primary prevention consideration you can use the NICE decision aid