Are the Therapeutic Effects of Huangqi (Astragalus membranaceus) on Diabetic Nephropathy Correlated with Its Regulation of Macrophage iNOS Activity?

Table 2

Analyses of clinical studies on treatment of different stages of diabetic nephropathy with Huangqi (Astragalus membranaceus) injections.

Stage	Number of cases		Study design	Main improvement indicators	Publication year
	Control group	Treatment group
I-II [7]	13	15	RCT	UAER, TGF-β1, HbA1c, C-IV	2004
III [8–11]	1644	1724	4 metas, including 49 RCTs	UAER [8–11], 24-hour urinary protein [8–10], Scr [8, 10, 11], BUN [8, 10], TG [8, 9], TC [8, 9], FBG [9, 10]	2013 (2004–2012)
					2013 (2005–2011)
					2014 (1998–2012)
					2017 (1998–2015)
III-IV [12]	859	945	Meta, including 21 RCTs, 4 CCTs	24-hour urinary protein, Scr, BUN, CCr	2011 (1999–2006)
IV [13–17]	199	256	5 RCTs	24-hour urinary protein [13–17], Scr [14, 16], BUN [14, 15], CCr [13, 17], TG [13, 16, 17], TC [13, 16, 17]	2000–2015
V [18–28]	120	152	11 RCTs	Scr [18, 20, 22, 23, 25–28], BUN [18, 22, 23, 25–28], CCr [22, 26, 27]	1997–2016

Note. ^∗Publication year of cited paper of RCT or CCT. UAER: urine albumin excretion rate; TGF-β1: transforming growth factor β1; HbA1c: glycosylated hemoglobin; C-IV: type IV collagen; Scr: serum creatinine; BUN: blood urea nitrogen; TG: glycerin trilaurate; TC: total cholesterol; FBG: fasting blood glucose; CCr: creatinine clearance rate.