Chinese Herbal Treatment on Chronic Kidney Disease

Chronic Kidney disease is a latent disease. When at the primary disease, the people may don’t even realize it because it doesn’t cause any obvious symptom. As for the people, the terrific thing is that if not properly treated or managed, kidney damage can get deteriorated to decrease renal functions. Many are very familiar with western medicine treatment, such as hormones, immunosuppressant, etc, but what about traditional Chinese medicine treatment? Will herbal treatment bring more treatment hope for people with kidney diseases?

Any kind of kidney disorder that can cause gradual lesioning on renal tissues can be included into chronic kidney disease (CKD). It can be caused by a variety of conditions, such as Diabetes, high blood pressure, infections, heredity, obstructive nephropathy, etc. The kidneys are made of millions of functioning renal cells that filtrate bloodstream and discharge toxins so to preserve stability of the inner environment. Any underlying condition that damages functioning renal cells will cause symptoms such as proteinuria, hematuria, high blood pressure, etc.

As for the treatment of chronic kidney disease, standard therapy to prevent progression of CKD in western medicine includes dietary protein restriction, blood pressure control, angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibition and angiotension receptor blockage. With the treatment and dietary medications, the deterioration of renal damage can be stopped, but not blocked. The term “chronic” is associated with an underlying risk of further deterioration into a more advanced stage. That’s why for any chronic disease, the earlier detection and prevention is, the better it would be. We can take Diabetic Nephropathy as an example. Average Diabetes course till the occurrence of clinical proteinuria is 17 years, and after proteinuria stage, kidney function gets irreversibly decline.

In comparison to western medicines, the effects of Chinese herbal medicine are far less known by people. Up to now, experimental researches and clinical trials have been dedicated on exploring the effects of herbs on kidney disease. In their research, researches from Huashan Hospital and Fudan University in China have found that, such Chinese herbal medicines, including Astragalus and a mixture of Astragalus plus Angelica, Ligusticum, Triptolide and Rhubarb, have a beneficial role in improving kidney condition in CKD. This effect is multi-functional and multi-targeted, and is often associated with a reduction in proteinuria and the amelioration of dyslipidaemia. According to the researches, mechanisms of Chinese medicines mainly include resisting inflammation, inhibiting overproduction of TGF-b, accelerating blood circulation and eliminating stasis.

Chinese herbal treatment has developed through thousands of years, and it is one of the ancient and natural treatment method for kidney disease. The combination of western and Chinese herbal treatment is of benefit for treating CKD. When western treatment remits symptoms, Chinese herbal treatment improves renal condition, enhances immunity, reduces side effects of western medicines. When at an earlier stage, the patients can improve their renal functions and stop onset of an advanced stage.