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.