Research Institute of Clinical Cardiology of National Medical Research Center of Cardiology, Moscow

Statins are the most well studied group of cardiovascular drugs, which reduce cardiovascular morbidity and mortality and occupy one of the leading places in Russian and international clinical recommendations for the treatment and prevention of cardiovascular diseases. The article is devoted to common misconceptions concerning statins, their side effects, intaking and influence on the patients’ compliance to the therapy. The article considers the most popular misconceptions in order to provide cardiologists, therapists, and neurologists with the tools to increase the patients’ compliance to statin therapy. The common misconceptions and research data are compared. New data on the use of statins in different categories of patients, their connection with oncology, liver diseases, dementia and the risk of developing diabetes and cataracts on the background of statins therapy are discussed. The comparative characteristic of efficiency and pharmacodynamic features of various statins is given. New data on «additional» effects of statins are presented.

Key words: statins, rosuvastatin, prevention of cardiovascular complications, compliance to the therapy.
For citation: Smirnova M.D., Ageev F.T. Statins - old myths and new facts // RMJ. 2017. № 20. P. 1421–1428.