Promising therapeutic mechanism for Chinese herbal medicine in ameliorating renal fibrosis in diabetic nephropathy.

Diabetic nephropathy (DN) is one of the most serious chronic microvascular abnormalities of diabetes mellitus and the major cause of uremia. Accumulating evidence has confirmed that fibrosis is a significant pathological feature that contributes to the development of chronic kidney disease in DN. However, the exact mechanism of renal fibrosis in DN is still unclear, which greatly hinders the treatment of DN. Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) has shown efficacy and safety in ameliorating inflammation and albuminuria in diabetic patients. In this review, we outline the underlying mechanisms of renal fibrosis in DN, including oxidative stress (OS) generation and OS-elicited ASK1-p38/JNK activation. Also, we briefly summarize the current status of CHM treating DN by improving renal fibrosis. The treatment of DN by inhibiting ASK1 activation to alleviate renal fibrosis in DN with CHM will promote the discovery of novel therapeutic targets for DN and provide a beneficial therapeutic method for DN.

Vitamin D supplementation for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in type 2 diabetes mellitus: A protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is strongly associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), and low vitamin D levels are positively associated with NAFLD and T2DM. But there is absence of convincing evidence-based medicine to confirm the efficacy of vitamin D supplementation for T2DM with NAFLD. Thus, we aimed to conduct this meta-analysis to summarize the efficacy of vitamin D supplementation for T2DM combined with NAFLD, and help to further clarify its beneficial action on diabetic patients with NAFLD. METHODS: The study only selects clinical randomized controlled trials of vitamin D supplementation for T2DM combined with NAFLD. We will search each database from the built-in until July 2020. The English literature mainly searches Cochrane Library, Pubmed, EMBASE, and Web of Science. While the Chinese literature comes from CNKI, CBM, VIP, and Wangfang database. Meanwhile, we will retrieve clinical trial registries and grey literature. Two researchers worked independently on literature selection, data extraction, and quality assessment. The dichotomous data is represented by relative risk (RR), and the continuous is expressed by mean difference (MD) or standard mean difference (SMD), eventually the data is synthesized using a fixed effect model (FEM) or a random effect model (REM) depending on the heterogeneity. The imaging markers of liver, biomarkers of hepatic steatosis, serological indexes of hepatic fibrosis, serum NAFLD liver fat score were evaluated as the main outcomes. While several secondary outcomes were also evaluated in this study. The statistical analysis of this meta-analysis was conducted by RevMan software version 5.3. RESULTS: This meta-analysis will further determine the beneficial efficacy of vitamin D supplementation for T2DM combined with NAFLD. CONCLUSION: This study determines the positive efficacy of vitamin D supplementation for diabetic patients with NAFLD.