Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), including ischaemic heart disease and cerebrovascular disease, are the leading cause of death in both sexes worldwide, followed by cancer. Most CVDs can be prevented by addressing behavioural risk factors, such as tobacco smoking, unhealthy diets, obesity, physical inactivity and harmful use of alcohol. Individuals with CVDs or those at high cardiovascular risk due to the presence of one or more risk factors (e.g. arterial hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidaemia and obesity) require early detection and management. Counselling and medicines should be offered, as appropriate. These shared metabolic and behavioural risk factors are causatively linked to the development of heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes and respiratory diseases. Lung cancer is, by far, the most common cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Given that lung cancer patients may initially present with cardiovascular and/or metabolic comorbidities at the time of cancer diagnosis, questions have been raised as to whether long-term use of combined medications to treat these diseases affects the incidence and mortality of lung cancer patients on a population-based level. Established oral therapies are currently the cornerstone of prevention of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, and include: 1) the anti-thrombotic agent acetylsalicylic acid (also known as aspirin) for reducing CVD morbidity and mortality among survivors of myocardial infarction and stroke; 2) the glucose-lowering agent metformin as the first-line therapeutic agent for type 2 diabetes (T2D); and 3) the lipid-lowering statins as effective drugs for reducing the risk of myocardial infarction, ischaemic stroke, and development of peripheral arterial disease. The impact of these medications on the present management of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases is emphasised by the fact that these agents are in the World Health Organization model list of essential medicines. Over the past few decades, these groups of drugs have commonly been prescribed together as a measure of chemoprevention given the close interconnection between cardiovascular disease, diabetes and dyslipidaemia. Nevertheless, in the literature to date, both observational and randomised controlled trials (RCTs) have merely assessed the individual potential effects of each of these three types of agents, without taking into account their combined effect, dose–response relationship or time-dependent exposure. The study to be discussed here by Kang et al. has shed some light on the latter.