Chinese medicine for treating diabetic nephropathy.

Diabetic nephropathy is one of the main causes of renal end-stage disease. The pathogenesis of diabetic nephropathy is complex. The current treatment is only for a particular cause without multi-target therapeutic drugs. Chinese medicine is a great treasure with multi-component complex drugs interacting with multiple targets and functions. This paper reviewed the protective effect of Chinese medicine for treating diabetic nephropathy in clinical studies, in vivo studies, and in vitro studies. The possible mechanisms, the major compounds and active crude drugs were also summarized. It was shown that Chinese medicine could not only relieve several symptoms and improve the quality of life, but also reduce the levels of proteinuria and kidney damage, and further improve renal function via multiple pathways based on the whole human system. Moreover, there were no reports of severe adverse reactions during the treatment.