Efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine on diabetic cardiomyopathy in animal models: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Longxiao Hu; Longxin Qian; Aochuan Sun; Guida Cai; Yunxiao Gao; Yue Yuan; Xiaoxiao Chen; Yunyao Jiang; Jianxun Liu; Junguo Ren

doi:10.3389/fphar.2023.1253572

Efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine on diabetic cardiomyopathy in animal models: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Front Pharmacol. 2023 Sep 28:14:1253572. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2023.1253572. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Longxiao Hu^#^{1

2}, Longxin Qian^#¹, Aochuan Sun^{1

2}, Guida Cai³, Yunxiao Gao¹, Yue Yuan¹, Xiaoxiao Chen¹, Yunyao Jiang⁴, Jianxun Liu¹, Junguo Ren¹

Affiliations

¹ Xiyuan Hospital, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, China.
² Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing, China.
³ Institute of Chinese Medicine, Guangdong Pharmaceutical University, Guangzhou, China.
⁴ Institute for Chinese Materia Medica, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Background: Diabetic cardiomyopathy (DCM) is a severe complication of diabetes that can diminish the quality of life in patients and is a leading cause of death. Research has demonstrated the effectiveness of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) in reducing blood sugar levels and protecting cardiovascular function in both animal models and clinical research studies. Nevertheless, the efficacy of TCM in animal models of DCM has not been analyzed systematically. Method: We searched the following electronic bibliographic databases: Web of Science, PubMed, Cochrane Library, and CNKI(China National Knowledge Infrastructure). Studies that reported the efficacy of TCM in animals with DCM were included. The literature search was conducted using the terms. The data will be restricted from the year 2013 to 24 April 2023, 24 studies were included in the meta-analysis. Result: A total of 24 Traditional Chinese Medicine interventions and 2157 animals met the inclusion criteria. The pooled data revealed that TCM interventions resulted in significant improvements in body weight (BW), heart weight (HW) to body weight ratio (HW/BW), triglyceride (TG) and cholesterol (TC) levels, ejection fraction (EF), fractional shortening (FS) and E/A ratio. Subgroup analysis and meta-regression revealed that the type of TCM, duration of intervention, method of modeling, and animal species were potential sources of heterogeneity. Conclusion: TCM interventions were associated with significant improvements in body weight, heart weight to body weight ratio, triglyceride and cholesterol levels, left ventricular internal dimension in systole, ejection fraction, fractional shortening and E/A ratio. The heterogeneity in the results was found to be potentially due to the type of TCM, duration of intervention, method of modeling, and animal species, as shown in subgroup analysis and meta-regression. Systematic Review Registration: identifier CRD42023402908.

Keywords: animal model; diabetic cardiomyopathy; meta-analysis; systematic review; traditional Chinese medicine.

Publication types

Systematic Review

Grants and funding

The authors declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This study was funded by the research and evaluation technology system of pharmacology of combination of disease and syndrome (No. CI 2021A04601).