Evaluation of the lipid lowering ability, anti-inflammatory effects and clinical safety of intensive therapy with Zhibitai, a Chinese traditional medicine

Systematic review of traditional Chinese medicine for geriatrics

“…To address RQ1, 37 RCTand meta-analyses were selected. These suggested that TCM might improve the symptoms of diseases of older adults, at least with respect to dementia and mild cognitive impairment (cognitive function, 6,7 behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia, [8][9][10][11][12] post-stroke symptoms [activities of daily living [13][14][15][16] ], depression, 17 aspiration pneumonia [18][19][20] and constipation 21 ), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, 22,23 hyperlipidemia, [24][25][26][27][28][29] foot ulcer as a result of diabetes mellitus, 30 osteoporosis, 31 post-abdominal surgery complications, 32 chronic constipation, 33,34 the prevention 35 and treatment 36,37 of influenza, angina pectoris, 38 and hypertension. 39 A total of 18 TCM prescriptions and herbs that were identified to have high, moderate or low QoE for older adults, of which Yigan San, Banxia houpu Tang, Dajianzhong Tang, Buzhongyiqi Tang and Ma Zi Ren Wan are covered by Japanese national insurance, were therefore listed in START (Table 1).…”

Toxic Myopathies

“…The traditional Chinese medicine Zhibitai contains red yeast rice equivalent to 10 mg of lovastatin plus Chinese hawthorn, oriental water plantain rhizome, and large-head atractylodes rhizome, and the mixture is claimed to have been equivalent in efficacy and safety to 10 mg of atorvastatin in an 8-week, double-blind, randomized trial, with no myopathy reported in either treatment group [51]. The question arises why one would not take lovastatin alone in pure form rather than an irrational mixture of variable purity and composition.…”

The Role of Chinese Medicine in the Treatment of Chronic Diseases in China

“…Our survey also showed that both CM practitioners and patients believe that decoction is effective and safe (unpublished data). Although the majority of herbal products (PCMs) have been reported to be safe [40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47], the safety issues were still more prevalent in many PCMs when compared to CM decoctions due to the usually long-period usage of PCM. The latest published National Adverse Drug Reaction (ADR) Report by State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) asserted that in the year of 2009, only 13.3 % ADRs were related to Chinese medicines, and totally about 2600 categories were involved in these reactions, among which, 99.5 % were relevant to PCM, less than 0.5 % to decoctions.…”