A Review of Chinese Herbal Medicine for the Treatment of Chronic Heart Failure

Abstract

Heart failure is one of the major causes of mortality worldwide and it is the end stage of several cardiovascular diseases. Traditional Chinese medicine has been used in the management of heart failure for a long time. Only until recently, well-designed clinical trials have been put into practice to study the efficacies of Chinese herbs. Extensive studies have also been carried out to explore the underlying mechanisms of pharmaceutical actions of Chinese herbs. In this study, we will summarize the frequently used Chinese herbs, formulae and patent Chinese drugs in treating patients with heart failure and review published clinical evaluations of Chinese herbs in treating cardiovascular diseases. The mechanisms by which Chinese herbs exert cardio-protective effects will also be reviewed. In the end, we will point out the limitations of current studies and challenges facing modernization of traditional Chinese medicine.

The Application of TCM Thought of Preventive Treatment of Disease in Clinical Practice

“…Chinese medicine has long advocated that people should be able to enhance their uprightness and thus resist evil by: moderate exercise, changing bad habits, adjusting the spirit and so on [4] .…”

Cross‐Talk between Gut Microbiota and the Heart: A New Target for the Herbal Medicine Treatment of Heart Failure?

“…Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has accumulated rich experience in the treatment of HF [8][9][10][11][12][13][14] and is commonly used as a complement to evidence-based therapies for chronic and acute HF [15][16][17]. Chinese herbal medicine combined with conventional medicine treatment could improve chronic heart failure (CHF) patients' quality of life (QoL) [18].…”

“…In addition, other studies have reviewed the published clinical evaluation and experimental studies about using TCM medications to treat heart failure, proving that TCM medications show the effects of antifibrosis, antiinflammation, antioxidation, antiapoptosis, proangiogenesis, and metabolism regulatory. TCM is thus expected to become an effective way to treat HF [16].…”

Effect of Baduanjin exercise on patients with chronic heart failure: protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis

“…4 Furthermore, indiscriminate or prolonged uses of the referred drugs may lead to severe side effects, such as hypotension, electrolyte and fluid depletion. 5 Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) emphasises on syndrome differentiation and focuses treatment based on the overall concept of the patient, while Western medicine (WM) studies for the specific causes of the diseases and bases treatments on medical tests. Due to the fundamental differences in approaches between the two medicines, it could be speculated that TCM can complement and improve the range of treatment of WM.…”