For patients with a clear diagnosis of coronary artery disease, doctors often recommend that patients take statin lipid-lowering drugs for a long time. Patients often ask us in the clinic, “Looking at the labs, my lipids are already within the normal range, should I stop taking them? First of all, we need to make sure that the labs provide a normal range for the test results. For 95% of the healthy population, anything below or above this range is abnormal. However, you should understand that the normal range is based on the premise that “healthy people” do not have coronary heart disease or risk factors for coronary heart disease. For people who are already at risk for coronary heart disease, hypertension, diabetes and other cardiovascular diseases, it is not enough to simply lower your lipids to the normal range. For patients with coronary heart disease, doctors will classify them into low risk, intermediate risk, high risk and very high risk according to their risk level. According to international guidelines for lipid lowering, LDL cholesterol needs to be below 3.4 mmol/L for low and intermediate risk patients, below 2.6 mmol/L for high risk patients, and below 1.8 mmol/L (lower than the lower limit of the normal range) for very high risk patients. So just because your lipids are normal on the labs doesn’t mean you’re on target for lipid lowering. Also, even though the lipids are in the normal range, that is often the effect of the lipid-lowering medication. If you reach the standard while taking the medication, once you stop taking the medication, it is likely that your blood lipids will soon rise again outside the normal range, which may greatly increase the damage to your blood vessels. We strongly oppose the behavior of “taking a few days, stopping a few days” with this kind of medication. Not only is the therapeutic effect greatly reduced, but the occurrence of side effects is not reduced. When should we stop the lipid-lowering drugs? Once there are serious side effects, you need to stop the drug in time. The main side effects of statins are muscle aches and pains and weakness. These may be symptoms of muscle damage, and creatine kinase tests need to be completed after stopping the drug to find out if they are due to statins. There is also an increase in liver aminotransferase after taking the drug, especially if it rises to more than three times the normal value. It is also necessary to seek medical attention as soon as possible so that the doctor can determine whether the liver damage is caused by lipid-lowering drugs and further adjust the medication. For patients with coronary artery disease, statins are very important and need to be taken for a long time or even for life under close monitoring, and it is important not to take them irregularly or even stop them at random. If side effects caused by statins are suspected, then it is also necessary to seek medical attention and adjust the medication in a timely manner.