Classical Chinese Herbal Formulas in the Treatment of Coronary Heart Disease: A Narrative Review

Objective:To summarize the current evidence for 8 frequently prescribed Chinese herbal formulas(CHF)as treatments for angina pectoris in patients with coronary heart disease(CHD)and the associated adverse reactions.Methods:Seven electronic databases were screened from their inception through July 2018 for all evidence related to classical CHF for the treatment of patients with CHD.Results:CHF improves CHD outcomes in terms of angina pectoris,electrocardiogram results,Chinese medicine syndromes and biomarkers iomarkers.The combination of CHF and Western medicine(WM)is more effective on CHD than WM alone.The use of CHF to treat CHD shows the same or better clinical effects as the use of WM alone.The 8 investigated CHF do not induce hepatic and renal toxicity or other serious adverse effects.Conclusions:The safety and efficacy of 8 frequently prescribed herbal formulas for treating CHD have been confirmed in many studies.The findings of these studies are positive but should be interpreted cautiously due to the poor methodological quality of the randomized controlled trials(RCTs)and meta-analyses.Additional high-quality,multi-center,large-sample RCTs should be performed to confirm these results.

Exploring Mechanisms of Panax notoginseng Saponins in Treating Coronary Heart Disease by Integrating Gene Interaction Network and Functional Enrichment Analysis

Objective： To investigate the mechanisms of Panax notoginseng saponins（PNS） in treating coronary heart disease（CHD） by integrating gene interaction network and functional enrichment analysis. Methods： Text mining was used to get CHD and PNS associated genes. Gene–gene interaction networks of CHD and PNS were built by the Gene MANIA Cytoscape plugin. Advanced Network Merge Cytoscape plugin was used to analyze the two networks. Their functions were analyzed by gene functional enrichment analysis via DAVID Bioinformatics. Joint subnetwork of CHD network and PNS network was identified by network analysis. Results： The 11 genes of the joint subnetwork were the direct targets of PNS in CHD network and enriched in cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction pathway. PNS could affect other 85 genes by the gene–gene interaction of joint subnetwork and these genes were enriched in other 7 pathways. The direct mechanisms of PNS in treating CHD by targeting cytokines to relieve the inflammation and the indirect mechanisms of PNS in treating CHD by affecting other 7 pathways through the interaction of joint subnetwork of PNS and CHD network. The genes in the 7 pathways could be potential targets for the immunologic adjuvant, anticoagulant, hypolipidemic, anti-platelet and anti-hypertrophic activities of PNS. Conclusion： The key mechanisms of PNS in treating CHD could be anticoagulant and hypolipidemic which are indicated by analyzing biological functions of hubs in the merged network.