Therapeutic application and prospect of Astragalus membranaceus and Angelica sinensis in treating renal microvascular lesions

It has been known that the renal microvasular lesions could aggravate the progress of glomerular sclerosis and tubulo-interstitial fibrosis in chronic kidney diseases. Modern pharmacological studies indicated that the two traditional Chinese herbs, Astragalus membranaceus and Angelica sinensis, could improve micorvascular lesions through multiple mechanisms, including increasing local renal blood flow to lessen the hypoxic renal injury, promoting the recovery of renal blood flow and glomerular filtration rate after ischemia-reperfusion, modulating the imbalance of vaso-activators such as nitric oxide and angiotensin, increasing the expression of vascular epithelial growth factor and inhibiting the release of the intracellular calcium ion and promoting DNA synthesis in endothelial cells to improve the function of endothelial cells. These evidences suggest that Astragalus membranaceus and Angelica sinensis may retard the progress of renal diseases through the above-mentioned mechanisms.PubMed09859-612