Traditional Chinese Medicine Interventions in Cardiovascular Disease
Summary
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) offers a diverse array of interventions for the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease, encompassing herbal formulations, acupuncture, tai chi and dietary modifications. Central to many TCM remedies are multi‐component herbal extracts that modulate inflammation, oxidative stress and lipid metabolism while promoting angiogenesis and endothelial health. Formulations such as the Shexiang Baoxin Pill have been studied for their roles in improving left ventricular ejection fraction, inhibiting fibroblast proliferation and enhancing microvascular repair in myocardial ischaemia–reperfusion models. Alongside preclinical findings, systematic reviews and meta‐analyses of randomised controlled trials suggest adjunctive benefits of TCM in acute myocardial infarction, chronic heart failure and stable coronary artery disease, with reported reductions in major adverse cardiovascular events and improvements in functional capacity. Mechanistic studies increasingly employ transcriptomic and spatial profiling to reveal gene‐level changes in cardiomyocytes, endothelial cells and immune populations. As TCM interventions gain traction beyond East Asia, integrating molecular evidence with rigorous clinical evaluation remains key to global translation and standardisation of practice.
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Traditional Chinese Medicine Interventions in Cardiovascular Disease publication trend
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Technical terms
Angiogenesis: Formation of new blood vessels from existing vasculature, critical for tissue repair.
Oxidative stress: Imbalance between reactive oxygen species production and antioxidant defences.
Endothelial dysfunction: Impaired function of the vascular endothelium leading to reduced vasodilation and pro-inflammatory signalling.
Myocardial ischaemia–reperfusion injury: Tissue damage caused when blood supply returns to the heart after a period of oxygen deprivation.
Left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF): Percentage of blood ejected from the left ventricle with each heartbeat, a key measure of cardiac function.
Transcriptomics: Study of complete sets of RNA transcripts produced by the genome under specific conditions.
References
- Single-nucleus ribonucleic acid-sequencing and spatial transcriptomics reveal the cardioprotection of Shexiang Baoxin Pill (SBP) in mice with myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury. Frontiers in Pharmacology (2023).
- Efficacy and safety of Shexiang Baoxin Pill for stable coronary artery disease: A systematic review and meta-analysis of 42 randomized controlled trials. Frontiers in Pharmacology (2022).
- Combination of Ginsenosides Rb2 and Rg3 Promotes Angiogenic Phenotype of Human Endothelial Cells via PI3K/Akt and MAPK/ERK Pathways. Frontiers in Pharmacology (2021).
- Shexiang Baoxin Pills as an Adjuvant Treatment for Chronic Heart Failure: A System Review and Meta‐Analysis. Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine (2018).
- Shexiang Baoxin Pill for Acute Myocardial Infarction: Clinical Evidence and Molecular Mechanism of Antioxidative Stress. Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity (2021).
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