Chinese herbal medicines and chronic kidney disease: a positive outcome in a large patient study in Taiwan

Glenda C Gobe; Kunyu Shen

doi:10.1038/ki.2015.300

Chinese herbal medicines and chronic kidney disease: a positive outcome in a large patient study in Taiwan

Kidney Int. 2015 Dec;88(6):1223-1226. doi: 10.1038/ki.2015.300.

Authors

Glenda C Gobe^{1

2}, Kunyu Shen^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Centre for Kidney Disease Research, School of Medicine, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
² Translational Research Institute, Brisbane, Australia.
³ Nephrology Center, The Second Clinical College, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine and Guangdong Provincial Hospital of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China.

PMID: 26649659
DOI: 10.1038/ki.2015.300

Abstract

The worth of traditional Chinese herbal medicines for chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients remains in debate. Lin et al. used a research database in Taiwan to identify almost 25,000 stage 3-5 newly diagnosed CKD patients who, after diagnosis, did or did not use prescribed Chinese herbal medicines for CKD. Reduced risk of end-stage kidney disease from specific traditional medicines warrants reflection on a CKD therapy resource that is largely ignored by Western medicine.