Effect of Heart-Protecting Musk Pill on Diabetic Microangiopaemia in Type 2 Diabetes Patients

Diabetes can lead to many diseases as diabetic macrovascular and microvascular complications which result in high disability and mortality rate, thereby seriously affecting the quality of life and life expectancy of diabetic patients. It not only aggravates the family burden of patients, but also becomes the main burden of public health services around the world.

Diabetic nephropathy (DN) and diabetic retinopathy (DR) are more serious in diabetic microangiopathy. The glomerulus and retina have the similar tissue structure and physiological function. Therefore, when they are exposured to the same risk factors can lead to microcirculation damage of kidney and retina. DN and DR have similar pathogenesis and development processes. Although the susceptibility genes and cytokines of DN and DR are different, the two can still be predictors of each other and they often coexist in diabetic patients.

At present, there are few drugs with definite curative effect on the treatment of diabetic microangiopathy, therefore the treatment of diabetic microangiopathy is an aspect that urgently needs a breakthrough in chronic complications of diabetes. Traditional Chinese medicine has a history of preventing and treating diabetes for thousands of years. For the treatment of chronic complications of diabetes by Chinese medicine, although there are not many Chinese medicines that have obtained curative effects, it has indeed accumulated rich experience in the process of research and clinical treatment that Western medicine could not obtain. Therefore, seeking Chinese medicine to effectively treat diabetic microvascular disease has become a direction worthy of attention and research.

Heart-Protecting Musk Pill (HMP) is a commonly used drug in clinical treatment, which comprises seven medicinal substances: Radix Ginseng, Venenum Bufonis, Styrax, Calculus Bovis Artifactus, Cortex Cinnamomi, Borneolum Syntheticum and Artificial Moschus. HMP is a traditional Chinese medicinal compound, which has been effectively used for treating coronary heart disease (CHD) and diabetic macrovascular disease. However, studies on Chinese medicines that are partially similar to HMP have shown that they can improve diabetic retinopathy. Therefore, the study of the efficacy of HMP on diabetic microangiopathy is extremely valuable. Previous researches have shown that HMP owns the effects of reducing oxidative stress, improving inflammation, anti-plateleting aggregation, promoting plasmin activity, and improving hemodynamics. It is possible that HMP can delay or improve the occurrence and development of diabetic microangiopathy through the above effects and even other unclear mechanisms.

At present, the drugs used for clinical treatment of type 2 diabetic microangiopathy are limited. Although the pharmacological indications of HMP can be used to deal with the pathogenesis of diabetic microvascular complications, there is still no clinical study of HMP for the treatment of diabetic microvascular complications. Therefore, this study compared the differences in indicators related to diabetic nephropathy, diabetic retinopathy, oxidative stress, and inflammatory factors between the control group and the HMP group before and after treatment to clarify the therapeutic effect of HMP on diabetic microangiopaemia.