Chinese Herbal Medicine for the Treatment of Prehypertension

Abstract

Objectives. To assess the current clinical evidence of Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) for prehypertension. Search Strategy. Electronic databases were searched until May, 2013. Inclusion Criteria. We included randomized clinical trials testing CHM against life style intervention and no treatment, or combined with life style intervention against life style intervention. Data Extraction and Analyses. Study selection, data extraction, quality assessment, and data analyses were conducted according to Cochrane standards. Results. Five trials were included. Methodological quality of the trials was evaluated as generally low. Only 1 trial reported allocation sequence. No trial reported the allocation concealment, double blinding, placebo control, presample size estimation, intention to treat analysis, and drop-out. All the included trials were not multicenter and large scale. Although meta-analysis showed that CHM is superior to either life style intervention group or no treatment group in decreasing blood pressure, we are unable to draw a definite conclusion on the effect of CHM due to the poor research methods used in the reviewed trials. The safety of CHM is still uncertain. Conclusions. There is no evidence to show that CHM is effective and safe for prehypertension due to serious methodological flaw of the reviewed trials. Rigorously designed trials are warranted to confirm these results.

Traditional Chinese Medicine Syndromes for Essential Hypertension: A Literature Analysis of 13,272 Patients

“…Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is becoming increasingly popular [ 6 – 13 ] and numerous interventions are regularly recommended to lower elevated blood pressure (BP) [ 14 – 17 ]. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), including herbal medicine and acupuncture, is an important component of CAM therapies [ 18 – 21 ]. Hypertension could be improved by insights from TCM and considerable progress has been made in lowering BP by TCM [ 22 – 26 ].…”

Systems Pharmacology-Based Strategy to Investigate Pharmacological Mechanisms of Radix Puerariae for Treatment of Hypertension

“…Traditional Chinese medicine has accumulated much experience in the treatment of hypertension, obesity hypertension, refractory hypertension, and other aspects (Xu and Chen, 2008;Wang and Xiong, 2012;Xiong et al, 2013). However, its specific mechanism of pharmacological action has not been fully and comprehensively revealed (Wang et al, 2013a;Wang et al, 2013b;Xiong et al, 2014;Xiong, 2015). Therefore, it is imperative to explore the mechanism of RP in the treatment of hypertension by applying a systems pharmacology method combined with screening of active compounds, drug targets, and network and pathway analysis.…”

Traditional Chinese Medicine for Essential Hypertension: A Clinical Evidence Map

“…TCM intervention for prehypertension is still insufficient. At present, only 3 SRs have been published, including nondrug therapy (17 RCTs, quality = 6) [ 160 ], CHM (8 RCTs, quality = 5) [ 137 ], and CHM (5 RCTs, quality = 8) [ 51 ]. In the future, greater focus should be placed on improving prevention and treatment during early hypertension, including prehypertension, grade 1 hypertension, and youth hypertension, and additional research should be carried out on specific clinical indicators and mechanisms.…”