Cardiovascular (CV) disease is a common comorbidity in COPD.1 Yet other than smoking cessation, routine COPD management is not currently focused on preventing CV disease. The risk of CV disease in COPD is two to three-fold greater than the risk generated by smoking,2 and CV disease accounts for more than a quarter of deaths in COPD patients.3 In other chronic diseases with an increased CV risk, statins have a role in CV prevention.4 There is limited but supportive retrospective and observational evidence for a cardioprotective role of statins in COPD.5,6 In healthy people with normal lipid levels but increased C-reactive protein (CRP) levels, atorvastatin in a large, randomized controlled trial (RCT) significantly reduced CRP and importantly the incidence of CV events.7