The review deals with the new European guidelines for the main areas of prevention of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) that remain the world's leading cause of untimely death. Despite the fact that CVD mortality has decreased in most European countries, it is still high in developing countries. The development of CVD is closely related to lifestyle that includes indicators, such as physical activity, bad habits, psychosocial factors, and nutrition. The 2012 European Society of Cardiology guidelines on CVD prevention in clinical practice have changed the priorities and goals of preventive measures and corrected approaches to assessing a cardiovascular risk in patients, including young people, and assigned a great role to the characteristics of major risk factors, their correction modes, and the importance of a predominance of lifestyle modification over medicinal correction method. The issues of patient adherence to physicians' advice and the need for a multilevel prevention system at all stage of medical care and social life of society are considered.