SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Cardiovasc. Med.
Sec. Atherosclerosis and Vascular Medicine
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fcvm.2025.1671008
Systematic review of Chinese medicine for the treatment of atherosclerosis
Provisionally accepted
- Army Medical University Xinqiao Hospital, Chongqing, China
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Atherosclerosis (AS) is a chronic inflammatory metabolic disease strongly associated with risk factors, including hypertension, hyperlipidemia, hyperglycemia, and hyperuricemia. AS serves as the pathological foundation for numerous cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), and it remains a major threat to global health. However, the underlying mechanisms driving AS development are incompletely understood. Elucidating the pathogenesis and key influencing factors of AS is critical for identifying novel preventive strategies and therapeutic approaches. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), with over 2000 years of clinical application, offers a rich source of potential interventions. Integrating modern medical technologies allows for the reevaluation of TCM from a natural compound perspective. This review comprehensively summarizes the mechanisms by which single herbal medicines (SHMs) and their derived natural compounds (NCs) exert effects against AS on the basis of preclinical evidence and analysis of seven selected double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials (RCTs).
Keywords: Chinese medicine, Atherosclerosis, Inflammation, Lipid Metabolism, glucose metabolism
Received: 22 Jul 2025; Accepted: 13 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 tang, liu, zhang, long, zheng, lu, li, xu and wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
zihui xu, zihuixu@tmmu.edu.cn
yunqiao wang, yunqiaowang@tmmu.edu.cn
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