Medicinal Plants as a Potential and Successful Treatment Option in the Context of Atherosclerosis

Tatiana V Kirichenko; Vasily N Sukhorukov; Alexander M Markin; Nikita G Nikiforov; Ping-Yen Liu; Igor A Sobenin; Vadim V Tarasov; Alexander N Orekhov; Gjumrakch Aliev

doi:10.3389/fphar.2020.00403

Medicinal Plants as a Potential and Successful Treatment Option in the Context of Atherosclerosis

Front Pharmacol. 2020 Apr 8:11:403. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2020.00403. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Tatiana V Kirichenko^{1

2

3}, Vasily N Sukhorukov^{1

2

3}, Alexander M Markin¹, Nikita G Nikiforov^{2

3}, Ping-Yen Liu^{4

5}, Igor A Sobenin^{1

3}, Vadim V Tarasov⁶, Alexander N Orekhov^{1

2}, Gjumrakch Aliev^{6

7

8

9}

Affiliations

¹ Laboratory of Infection Pathology and Molecular Microecology, Research Institute of Human Morphology, Moscow, Russia.
² Laboratory of Angiopathology, Institute of General Pathology and Pathophysiology, Moscow, Russia.
³ Laboratory of Medical Genetics, National Medical Research Center of Cardiology, Moscow, Russia.
⁴ Institute of Clinical Medicine, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.
⁵ Division of Cardiology, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, Tainan, Taiwan.
⁶ Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University (Sechenov University), Moscow, Russia.
⁷ Institute of Physiologically Active Compounds, Russian Academy of Sciences, Chernogolovka, Russia.
⁸ GALLY International Research Institute, San Antonio, TX, United States.
⁹ Laboratory of Molecular Pathology, Research Institute of Human Morphology, Moscow, Russia.

Abstract

Atherosclerosis is a chronic multifactorial disease characterized by mainly changes of blood lipids profile and inflammation in vessel wall. The cardiovascular disease based on atherosclerosis is currently the leading cause of mortality in developed countries. Therefore, timely prevention and therapy of atherosclerosis are able to reduce the risk of the development of its clinical manifestations. Anti-atherosclerotic activity of medicinal plants mainly appears in their multiple effects such as anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, anti-atherogenic, hypotensive, lipid-lowering, anti-thrombotic. Moreover, most of medicinal plants are characterized by their pleiotropic anti-atherosclerotic action. In addition, the medicinal plants-derived pharmacological substances and/or compounds are characterized by relative safety and fewer side effects that allows considering them as one of potential anti-atherosclerotic effective agents. The direct anti-atherosclerotic effect of some medicinal plants was confirmed in clinical trials of carotid Intima-media thickness (IMT) progression during long-term medication with medicinal plants. This review attempted to determine the current status of the databases PubMed and Scopus (until November, 2019) to investigate the medicinal plants possessing anti-atherosclerotic activity in experimental and clinical studies.

Keywords: anti-atherosclerotic mechanisms; atherosclerosis; cardiovascular risk; carotid IMT; medicinal plants.

Publication types

Review