"Taking statins the day of a coronary artery bypass operation may significantly improve survival a study in the Annals of Thoracic Surgery found http Researchers looked at  heart surgery patients most of whom were taking cholesterollowering statins. The  who continued statins up to the day of surgery had a risk of death within  days of . percent compared with . percent for  who stopped one to three days before surgery and . percent for  who did not take statins or stopped more than  hours before their operations. The scientists had no data on how long patients had been taking statins but only on when they stopped. After controlling for many preoperative health and behavioral characteristics they found that compared with other patients those who took statins on the day of surgery had a  percent reduced risk of dying in the next  days. We already knew that people on statins before surgery had a decreased risk of death said a coauthor Dr. Yi Deng an assistant professor of anesthesiology at Baylor College of Medicine. But theres never before been data saying how harmful stopping shortly before surgery can be. Unless you have some other reason to stop them you should take statins right up to the morning of surgery."