2 Significance of traditional Chinese medicines and formulae in
regulating immunometabolic stress and treating atherosclerosis
Current studies have confirmed that endothelial cell apoptosis is the
first step of atherosclerosis. Excessive endothelial cell apoptosis
induced by atherosclerosis risk factors is a preliminary event in the
development of atherosclerosis and may be a target for prevention and
treatment of atherosclerosis. The extracts of natural herbs have obvious
effects on the regulation and improvement of immune metabolism pathways.
Accumulating evidence suggests that natural drugs have great potential
to treat atherosclerosis by inhibiting endothelial cell apoptosis.(Duan
H et al., 2021)However, at present, most of the clinical studies have
only a very small sample size, and the lack of high-quality clinical
trials hinders the application of herbal medicine in patients with
diabetic atherosclerosis.